Still (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Frances Poet

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 72

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

'Folk say you can trick a brain. Placebo power. I'm going to stand up and it'll feel better.' Across Edinburgh, five souls stagger towards each other, hoping to be transformed. Gaynor's got to leave the house if she wants to meet her newborn granddaughter. Stillness has been the only way to deal with her chronic pain but now it's time to move. Gilly's not sure what her dying dad's feeling but the one thing she knows from experience is that it's best not to Google it. Dougie and Ciara have spent their last NCT class preparing for the labour pains ahead, but now it's time for one last night on the dance floor. And then there's Mick, who wakes up on Portobello Beach in the early hours of the morning with two gold rings in his pocket. He can't remember what they're for but he knows it's something important. He'll work out what if only his old pal, Pat, will stop buying him drinks… Full of tenderness and humour, Frances Poet's play Still is a cathartic story of life, loss and joy. It was premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2021.

Leseprobe

Frances Poet

STILL

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Epigraphs

Still

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Still was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre Company and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, and first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 2 August 2021, with the following cast and creative team:

DOUGIE

Martin Donaghy

GAYNOR

Molly Innes

MUSICIAN/BARTENDER

Oǧuz Kaplangi

MICK

Gerry Mulgrew

CIARA

Mercy Ojelade

GILLY

Naomi Stirrat

Director

Gareth Nicholls

Designer

Karen Tennent

Lighting Designer

Colin Grenfell

Composer & Sound Designer

Oǧuz Kaplangi

Movement Director

Kally Lloyd-Jones

Dramaturg

Eleanor White

Associate Director

Shilpa T-Hyland

For

Daisy Hermione McMorrow 11.09.16

Benjamin McEvoy Collins 06.11.09

Roger Edward Stirk 1939–2012

Acknowledgements

Still exists because I was selected to be the IASH/Traverse Creative Fellow in 2018. Thank you to the panel who chose me, including Ben Fletcher Watson and Orla O’Loughlin, all the IASH team and the many scholars I met through it.

My research was aided by the wonderful Rachel Bradnock, Jennifer Corns and Jen Penman, who sat down with me and shared their professional expertise so generously.

During the play’s development, I was lucky enough to mine the brilliant dramaturgical minds of Dominic Hill, Elizabeth Newman and Philip Howard as well as some talented actors: Kenny Blyth, Charlene Boyd, Scott Fletcher, Lesley Hart, Jamie Marie Leary, Fletcher Mathers, Adura Onashile and the 2020 students of the Classic and Contemporary Text course (facilitated by Playwright’s Studio, Scotland, Fiona Sturgeon Shea and Marc Silberschatz).

The unflappable and excellent Gareth Nichols has been with Still from the beginning and I am so grateful that he chose it to be his first production as AD of the Traverse after the long Covid-19 hiatus. Thank you, Gareth, for so skilfully drawing out the theatricality and joy in the play, assisted by our dependable dramaturg Eleanor White, the musical talent of Ogus Kaplangi, a first-rate creative team, the heroic Traverse staff, and our bloody brilliant cast, Martin Donaghy, Molly Innes, Gerry Mulgrew, Mercy Ojelade and Naomi Stirrat, who all made significant contributions to the play.

Thanks too to Nick Barron, Matt Applewhite and Nick Hern, Cove Park, Helen Matheson, Catherine Wiseman (via my Edinburgh expert, Naomi), my inspiring mummy, Janet Stirk, my big bro, Andrew, and my beloveds: Richard, Elizabeth and especially Peter Poet for his Pokémon expertise.

And finally thank you to my dear friends Lindsay, James, Will, Sam and Jacob McMorrow, and Lucianne, Peter, Grace and Martha Pearl McEvoy Collins.

F.P.

Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.

George Orwell

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

Mother Teresa

Characters

CIARA, late twenties/early thirties

GILLY, twenties

DOUGIE, late twenties/early thirties

MICK, sixties

GAYNOR, late fifties

Setting

A space in which five people can exist simultaneously that incorporates a bath/birthing pool. It is Ciara’s surgery, Gaynor’s home, an NCT meeting room, a palliative care unit, a labour ward, and the pubs and streets of Edinburgh.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

1. Exruciating Pain

Friday. A heavily pregnant CIARA is in her surgery with GILLY.

GILLY. It’s been there quite a while, I suppose. And I tend to be a head-in-the-sand kind of a person at the best of times so I probably should have come a long time ago. And it’s pretty gross and I’m not very good with stuff like that so I suppose I hoped it would just sort itself out. But it hasn’t. It’s grown. It’s kind of a… red mushroom coming from the, you know…

She points ‘down there’.

CIARA. Okay…

GILLY. It’s actually quite pronounced. And it’s, well, now it’s gone black so…

CIARA. Black?

GILLY. Well a dark sort of… yes, I’d say black.

CIARA. How long has it been black?

GILLY. A few days. Which I don’t suppose is a very good thing, is it?

CIARA. And pain?

GILLY. Yes. I didn’t… At first… I mean. I’ve been distracted so… but yes, I’d say quite considerable pain now. Sitting and whatnot. Excruciating pain even.

CIARA. Let’s take a look, shall we?

GILLY nods and gets up. Not to remove her trousers – this isn’t her consultation. She brings out a small pug from a carry case to her side.

GILLY. Come on, puggywug. This nice lady is going to look at your bits.

CIARA takes the dog.

CIARA. Hello… Puggywug, is it?

GILLY. Mr Immanuel Kant.

CIARA. Sorry?

GILLY. I know, right? It was either that or James Joyce, which would have been no better since she’s a girl. Not that my dad could remember that. He has dementia. Lewy bodies. I think he would have called her that even if he had remembered her gender. His sense of humour’s always been a bit… She’s his pug.

CIARA is examining the pug.

CIARA. What’s her appetite like?

GILLY. Not great.

CIARA. Has she been drinking?

GILLY. Not since she joined AA.

Tumbleweed.

Sorry. No, not really. She’s never been a big drinker though. Of water.

CIARA finishes her examination.

CIARA. She has a prolapsed vagina.

GILLY. I didn’t know that was even a thing.

CIARA. In dogs that aren’t neutered it’s fairly common. The thing is, we would have hoped to catch this much sooner than we have.

GILLY. But you can make her better?

CIARA. No. I’m sorry.

GILLY. Can’t you just cut it out?

CIARA. It’s part of her vaginal wall, we can’t cut it away. I’m afraid the best thing we can do for her is to put an end to her /

GILLY. No.

CIARA. I know this is hard…

GILLY. I’m taking her home with me. If there’s nothing you can do, we’ll just go.

GILLY gets up to take her.

CIARA. You can hear her breathing is shallow and she’s running a very high temperature. She’s septicaemic. She’s not getting better from this. And she’s in a lot of pain. The kindest thing to do /

CIARA has positioned herself (and her enormous bump) between GILLY and the dog.

GILLY. Can you move please?

CIARA. I can see how important Mr… erm.

GILLY. Mr Immanuel Kant.

CIARA. Yes, it’s clear that Mr Iman… Iman–

GILLY. Immanuel Kant.

CIARA. Yes. It’s clear that… (Spit it out CIARA, you can do this.) she is very important to you. And it’s hard when you love them so much but ask yourself what you’d want if you were in pain /

GILLY. I am in pain!

She really is. And suddenly it’s pouring out of her.

My dad is dying. His swallow has gone. So he’s getting no fluids. The doctors say he’ll die in days. And now you want to kill his dog too?! Not this week. Please. I need her this week. I can’t watch them both die.

CIARA flounders. She’s not qualified to deal with this.

CIARA. No. No. Of course not.

GILLY. Is there anything we can do?

CIARA considers.

CIARA. We can push it back in and give her a course of antibiotics. It will be painful and it won’t work. But it might buy you a little time.

GILLY. Thank you.

CIARA. Okay.

GILLY. I’ll bring her back in. If she’s in a lot of pain. I promise. And then you can, you know. End it for her. Just not today.

CIARA. Okay.

GILLY. How do you do it?

CIARA. A wee injection. It’s all over in two minutes.

GILLY. So quick. My dad’s on day three. Could you give me a dose for him?

CIARA. Not the same for humans.

GILLY. Why not?

CIARA. You can’t explain to an animal why they’re feeling what they are.

GILLY. Nobody can explain to my dad either. Or if they could, he’d forget. Would I watch as you inject her?

CIARA. It’s best. She’ll need you to stroke her, talk to her so she can hear your voice.

GILLY. What am I supposed to say to somebody that’s dying?

CIARA. Just talk the way you usually do…

GILLY. We haven’t talked properly in years. And when he tried to apologise for that, for being shit when my mum died, I didn’t understand. He’d bought all this random crap and.

Sorry.

I’ll ask for you. When I make the appointment.

CIARA holds her bump.

CIARA. Last day today.

GILLY. Congratulations. Do you know what you’re having?

CIARA. A little girl.

GILLY. Got a name picked out?