The Strongbox E-Book

Stephanie Jacob

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 57

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A story of domestic servitude and abuse of power, as authoritarian Kat, her ageing mother, Ma, and their teenaged slave, Maudie, jostle for power – and affection – in their dilapidated London home. The Strongbox by Stephanie Jacob was first performed as part of the 2018 VAULT Festival, London, where it was the winner of a VAULT Origins Award for outstanding new work from the theatre programme.

Leseprobe

Stephanie Jacob

THE STRONGBOX

NICK HERN BOOKSLondonwww.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Welcome (back) to VAULT

Original Production

Characters

The Strongbox

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Welcome (Back) to VAULT

We once dreamed about offering the chance for talented writers at VAULT to see their work published. (Enter Nick Hern Books, confident, bold, even foolhardy.) Three years on, and Plays fromVAULT is becoming a festival staple. It’s energising to know that there is interest in, and demand for, the VAULT alumni of 2018.

This year, these committed and passionate publishers have gone a step further, becoming the sole sponsors of the VAULT New Writers Award. Alongside writer Camilla Whitehill, and producer Rosalyn Newbery, eight brand-new playwrights are taking part in an eight-week writers’ course at VAULT. It wouldn’t have happened without Nick Hern Books and they deserve loud thanks for their belief in nurturing new talent.

VAULT 2018, the sixth festival, runs for eight weeks. We are joined by more venues than ever including the Waterloo East Theatre, the Network Theatre, and the Travelling Through Bookshop. There are already over 330 groups of artists featured in the programme at this year’s festival.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re already curious, so forgive us if we co-opt you a little further. If you’re good at being an audience member, come and see more than you planned to at VAULT. If you’re good at being an artist, think about bringing something to VAULT 2019. If you’re good at being a commissioner, you can go right ahead and commission these writers.

To the future!

Mat Burt, Andy George & Tim WilsonVAULT Festival Directors

The Strongbox was first performed at VAULT Festival, London, on 28 February 2018, with the following cast:

MAJoanna WakeKATStephanie JacobMAUDIEHannah MorleyDirectorLucy RichardsonScenography & Lighting DesignJelmer TuinstraSound DesignLex Kosanke

Characters

MA, a woman in her seventies, a Londoner

KAT, her daughter, in her forties

MAUDIE, a girl aged seventeen, from Bristol

The play is set in London, present day.

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

ONE

A table set for two: soup, bread, two apples, a sharp knife. MAUDIE, wearing a McDonald’s cap, stands behind MA’s chair. MA sits opposite KAT, in dressing gown and slippers.

MA. What’s this?

KAT. Guess.

MA sniffs her soup.

She’ll get it.

MA. Fennel. Is it?

MAUDIE. Yeah yeah yeah.

KAT. Better than a bloodhound.

KAT eats.

Go on, then.

MA. In a minute.

KAT. Weird, though.

MA. What?

KAT. Weird taste.

MA. I love it.

KAT. That’s why she made it.

MA/MAUDIE. Yes. / Yeah.

KAT. But truthfully it’s like eating an old river or something. A bowlful of Thames, complete with all the shit.

MA. Kat!

KAT. Sorry.

MA. There are plenty of other words.

KAT. Good to see you up again. Isn’t it, Maudie?

MAUDIE. Excellent, truly.

KAT. Have a spoonful. Go on.

MA has a spoonful of soup.

Does this little dance in your mouth, doesn’t it? Am I savoury, am I sweet?

MA. Actually it does.

KAT (to MAUDIE). Do the dance, do the Fennel Dance, go on. Savoury or sweet?

MAUDIE does a shuffle.

MA. What’s this in aid of?

MAUDIE (dancing, croons). Savoury.

KAT. You stirring your stumps again.

MAUDIE (dancing, croons). Savoury savoury.

KAT. Welcome back to the land of the living, Ma! (To MAUDIE.) We missed you, didn’t we?

MAUDIE (dancing, croons). Sweet!

KAT. Enough. Back.

MAUDIE stands behind MA.

KAT eats.

MA watches KAT.

You’re not eating.

MA. Look at you.

KAT. What?

MA. You’re different.

KAT. No, I’m not. Am I?

MA. You’re.

KAT. What?

MA. I don’t know. You’re ample.

KAT. Ample?

MA. Inside, I mean.

KAT. Ample?

MA. Don’t get all –

KAT. I’m not –

MA. A house of many rooms. You’re an oak tree with many perches.

KAT. Alright, Mrs Wordsworth. Now if you’d kindly eat your soup.

MA. I can’t.

KAT. You’ve got to eat.

MA. Got to?

KAT. I didn’t mean –

MA. I haven’t got to anything, Katherine.

KAT. No.

MA. Got to.

KAT. Sorry.

KAT eats.

MA watches her.

MA. If you’d been as ill as I have, you wouldn’t have an appetite either.

KAT. I know, you’re thin as a string, I could twang you.

MA. Twang me?

KAT. That was a joke. Ho ho?

MA. Funny sort of joke.

MAUDIE. Ho ho.

KAT. Course I’d never twang you.

MA. No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t dare.

KAT. No.

KAT eats.

MA. Where d’you get the fennel, then?

KAT. She dug it up.

MA. My fennel?

MAUDIE. Kat said to.

KAT. As a treat for you.

MAUDIE. Yeah yeah yeah.

MA. I see.

KAT. There’s another bulb out there, Ma.

MA. One?

KAT. One or two.

MA. Which?

MAUDIE. One.

KAT. Quiet.

MA. Prevaricator. Better eat my soup then. Seeing it’s the penultimate bulb.

MA has a spoonful.

They watch her.

KAT. And?

MA. I’ve had better.

KAT (to MAUDIE). Bread.

MAUDIE (bringing bread). The body, the life, alive alive-o.

KAT. Did I say talk?

MAUDIE. No.

MAUDIE resumes her place.

KAT. Guess who come in the yard yesterday.

MA. Who?

KAT. Guess.

MA. I don’t know, do I? I’ve been rotting here for weeks.

KAT. Hodge.

MA. Jack Hodge?

KAT. Black Jack Hodge.

MA. In our yard?

KAT. Strolls in like he’s just passing. Don’t see me, I’m on the turn of the stairs.

MA. And?

KAT. He just stands looking.

MA. And?

KAT. All the cars gleaming, the boys in their beautiful soft dark suits.

MA. And?

KAT. I watched his face turn sour.

MA chuckles.

I know why he came, too.

MA. Why?

KAT. He’d just heard I got Greening’s.

MA. What?

KAT. Yup.

MA. You did?

KAT. Yup.

MA. Kitty Kat.

KAT. I got ’em, Ma. They’re coming over to us.

MA. You clever puss!

KAT. I got Greening’s!

MA. Oh, she’s a sly one, isn’t she, Maudie?

MAUDIE. Sly as a fox in a box.

MA. You got Greening’s. You did.

KAT. Greening’s, White’s, Fuller’s, they’ve all come over to us now –

MA. Not Enright’s.

KAT. I’m working on Enright’s.

MA. Are you?

KAT. We get Enright’s, he’s done for.

MA. Black Jack Hodge.

MAUDIE. Bom bom bom.

MA. Mean as a cornered rat, that man. But now finally. When I’m back, I’ll.

KAT and MA look at each other.

I’m coming back.

KAT eats.

I’m getting my strength back. More every day. Aren’t I, Maudie?

MAUDIE. Stronger than Superman.

MA. I will be there. There’s no question – what now, when he finally? No. Not all the years I’ve been working and waiting and watching that lump of – decades! I will be there to remind him how he jeered and smeared our name and spat on my stairs and swaggered across my yard and now finally