Darkness Upon the Soap Suds

Over the last few years I have been working on a theatre script which has now been accepted by the National Theatre. It will be in the theatre's 2012 winter season and is currently in the casting stage however the script has seen interest from the likes of Daniel Day Lewis and Ben Kingsley.

I thought it would good to the post said script on here as it is now out of its development stages and can be shared openly. If you're hoping to come to the performance in November you might not want to read too much or you'll spoil it for yourself!

The script is essentially a deep philosophical exploration of the war ordinary people face with daily life. It is structured in six acts each consisting of one scene lasting no more than two minutes. Each scene is followed by a thirty minute interval. I thought this would be the optimal structure as it would really encourage the audience to think about what they saw. The National Theatre particularly liked this as they felt it was innovating the theatre form.

I shall make a few comments after the text.

Act 1: EPISTEME

Scene 1:

Lights Up. Two men (Lazaros and Thales) stand at a sink, one washing, one drying. They face the audience. They wash in silence for several minutes. The washer cleaning each dish thoroughly, the dryer drying each item placed on the drainer and stacking them neatly on the other side of the sink.

A female offstage shouts: "Watch your waist line!"

Thales: (Looks up, freezes) I cannot watch my waist line any longer. The war has taken a lot from me. So much... so much... And now I am lost unable to find waist line amongst the myriad bodies of the dead. Am I not fat. Or just lost. For I am stuck here washing for the dead, washing for the lost... or drying... as the case may be. (Grasping Lazaros' arm) For indeed you are the washer Lazaros.

Chorus: (Off Stage) FOR HER IS THE WASHER

Thales: I can no longer live in this terrible time against the thousand glorious hours of death that play towards me in endless harmony. Of the war, of the terrible loss. PLEASE! Don't look at me anymore... for I am dead...

Curtain Down. Lights Up.

-------------------- INTERVAL-----------------------

Act 2: ELENCHOS

Scene 1:

Thales and Lazaros are still washing up.

Thales: Did you break another meringue into the Eton Messe?

Lazaros: (Pauses in his washing and looks at Thales) Is that a metaphor...?

Curtain down. Light up.

-------------------- INTERVAL-----------------------

Act 3: GNOSIS

Scene 1:

Thales and Lazaros sit at a table just to the left of the sink eating an large Eton Messe with rasperberrys in it.

Thales: Did you know that when Etonians are in Eton they are only allowed to eat Eton Messe.

Lazaros: They've taken everything from us, and they take more...

Thales: So much more... (Pauses)

Lazaros: I can't take it anymore! Why are those fucking rich country runners allowed to only eat Eton Messe when they go to Eton and we have to eat it for every meal!!! (He violently smashes the bowl of Eton Messe on the grounded)

Thales: Now you've made a mess...

Curtain down. Lights up.

-------------------- INTERVAL-----------------------

Act 4: SOPHROSYNE

Scene 1:

Thales and Lazaros continue washing up in silence. Carefully Thales sweeps up the remains of the bowl and Eton Messe and deposits them in the bin.

Curtain down. Lights up.

-------------------- INTERVAL-----------------------

Act 5: EPOCHE

Scene 1:

Thales and Lazaros continue washing up.

Lazaors: (Stops suddenly) Look an audience! (Pointing at the audience)

Thales: I know

Lazaros runs over to a small wall makes out of garish children's building blocks with the number four chalked on it which has been standing innocuously on the side of the stage throughout the play and kicks it over. He comes back and they continue washing up.

Curtain down. Lights up.

-------------------- INTERVAL-----------------------

Act 6: AXIOS

Scene 1:

Lazaros and Thales have almost finished the washing up.

A woman's voice shouts from offstage "I'm coming out!"

Lazaros: (Sighs loudly)

Thales: For she will always be outside...

Chorus: (Offstage) OUTSIDE!

Thales: ...never to seen or heard again. Locked against here will, fettered the very breathing earth which invests her souls and body. Oh Christ! Why!? Why!? (Shouting) Carrying on into nothing sequencing into death itself (whispering. Thales slumps down despondently next to Lazaros' tense form)

Lazaros: I see now. Excuse for a moment... I must get a breath of fresh air... just a moment outside... (Lazaros leaves, Thales stands quietly weeping, on his own by the sink)

Thales: You've left the tap running...

Curtain down. Lights up.

-------------FINE-----------------

So there you have it. The first time I showed it to the programming director at the National Theatre she wept, broke down, it was very sad. She was unable to speak for several minutes but she finally agreed that she had to program it.

You may be finding it hard to concentrate on this after the enormity of what you have just read but please don't become overwhelmed. You may be asking yourself, "how can one human being produce such perfection?" And I would say "while the work is perfection, the vessel is not. I am simply a channel for a higher power, and while I am a literary and artistic genius even I when I wrote it could not conceive of the great and powerful work it would become."

I hope you can carry on living your life having read what you have read, it affects everyone in a different way but just remember, if you suddenly feel that you must change your life, then do it, live as a new person, let the art transform you into something new!

(And buy a copy of the play from my short order website for £169.99. It's worth it.)

A Christmas Story

As has become the tradition among the corporate overlords of the west, one must always make sure to drill the holidays for all they are worth (and in many cases more than they are worth). The holiday for which this holds most true is of course Christmas. A six month extravaganza of greed, food and insanity culminating several days after the so called "Christmas day" during the sales in which middle class mothers and chavs war with each other over cheap hand bags in the aisles of Primark.

Thus the following post will be about my Christmas day as I shamelessly honour the forces which made Amer- I mean Britain great.

Christmas day for me was spent with my step-mother's family and with my father, this is usually the case as my father's family is tedious and my mother's family wouldn't know how to celebrate Christmas even if they took a series of instructive OU courses complete with stocking knitting exercises and tree decorating modules.

Seriously. The one Christmas I spent with them we had rice and fried fish for dinner. There was no Christmas tree and everyone went on about how they didn't enjoy Christmas much so they had just agreed not to celebrate it.

This somewhat defeated the point for me. I hate Christmas just as much as anyone else. It's a horrible, mindless, exploitative holiday, but it's very difficult to muster up the proper amount of disgust and false moralising when you aren't surround by the garish, jolliness of it all. Thus instead of being a happy, misreable scrooge.

I was just a misreable scrooge.

Which is no fun at all.

In any case, my step-mother's family are a lot more interesting than most families I know, mainly because they seem to have escaped the notice of all the local asylums in the area.

Attending Christmas day was my step-mother, her sister Laura, (who may remember from such classic Lugosior Tysnian posts as Dog Parents), her other Sister Eliza, her Son James, her father, my father and I.

I arrived with my father at just gone one O'clock, dinner was scheduled for quarter to three and my Step-mother and her two sisters who were all cooking together were all approaching their passive aggressive breaking points regarding disagreements over how the food should be cooked. The slow breaking down of their tempers is a fascinating process, like watching someone slowly putting more and more pressure on a bone until finally it snaps!

They start off cursory and civil. My step-mother will say "Laura darling," flashing a toothy smile that more resembles a dog raising its hackles than a display of reassuring warmth, "I think you should probably put the onion into the bread sauce now, just a suggestion, darling, I know it's your dish, but darling you really should put the onion in."

Laura replies "Thank you sweetheart. I actually think it could wait a little bit longer, but I'm really really happy to have the advice sweetie."

It always amuses me how they manage to make words like "sweetheart" and "darling" ring with the cold hard stab of "you bitch," and with all the false sugary love of a pudding saturated with poison.

And indeed. It does not take long until they do snap; a shouting match begins across the kitchen. "You bitch Laura! The potatoes still need ten minutes!"

"They don't need ten minutes you stupid whore!" Ripostes Eliza. "Can you not count! They're ready now!"

"Compromise!" Shouts my Step-mother interrupting "Five minutes."

Stay out of this!" Screams Laura. "We have to get those poor starchy babies out of the oven now! Otherwise they'll be ruined."

"There's no need to shout at me." Reproaches my Step-mother.

"Oh! So your siding with her!" Laura wails pointing at Eliza. "I knew it. You bitch. You fucking bitch. You always take he side. Let the potatoes burn then!" She runs off crying

After my step-mother has gone and found her, apologised for her apparent transgression and calmed her down the potatoes have been in for an extra twenty minutes. They come out burnt but still edible. This starts off a "I told you so," shouting match between the sisters which is eventually adjourned by my father threatening to throw the entire meal away if they don't stop arguing.

Through the chronic snoozing of my step-mother's father and the insufferable wittering of my step-brother to let him "please open my presents now, pleeeeeease," we all manage to make it to the table and sit down to a delicious meal. At least food doesn't invest itself with the same insanity of its cooks.

Dinner passes without too much problem, apart from being to subjected to another one of Laura's odes to her dead mother as detailed in one of my previous posts.

After dinner everyone moves to the living room and it is time for the tense process of present opening. This is again a part of Christmas that the three sisters seem to have been unable to leave behind their childish sibling rivalry towards. The star of the drama as usual is Laura. Laura's birthday is in January and so she has always felt disenfranchised by her family because she would always get less presents than her two sisters as her birthday was so close to the holiday season.

As the presents are opened she keeps count of what everyone is getting, a little note book on her lap, tallying off the gifts her sister's receive.

By chance Eliza ends up opening more gifts in the first ten minutes than anyone else and as her amount of presents increases Laura begins to comment in a high, clear voice, bathed in sarcasm "My my! Another present for Eliza!? Oh how about this one? I wonder who this is for? Oh. Eliza again! How lovely."

Finally her sarcastic comments turn into an angry scream and she yells "None of you love me! None of you bought me anything!"

She storms out of the room.

This time it is Eliza and her father's turn to go and comfort her. Eventually she is coaxed back to the living room and starts opening her presents which were simply at the back of the tree. After consulting her tally chart it is shown that she actually received more gifts than anyone else.

However, just as it is inconceivable to gravity to let things float, it is inconceivable to Laura to be the best off in a situation and so she begins making estimates about the value of her two sister's gifts compared to hers, until she comes to the conclusion that she is the worst by at least £50 and that "None of us love her."

Again.

She cries and storms off for the third time that day. No one goes to comfort her this time and finally she does come back, but keeps a sullen look on her face as everyone else enjoys their gifts, chats and basks in the warmth of the fire as the darkening afternoon closes in.

As this part of the day comes to an end my Step-mother announces that she has "organized some fun games for us all to play." I groan inwardly at this.

My Step-mother's concept of "fun games [for all the family]" is apparently charades.

But not just any Charades! Charades with the names of the things we have to try and make everyone guess written on cards so we can't make up our own!

My Step-mother asserts that this will make it more fun. The cards I am given consist entirely of films I have never heard of that were most likely released sometime in the 70s.

She then announces she is ready to start. "Ok! One point for guessing correctly aaaaand go!"

Thus the fatal mistake was made.

The blunder of ages.

The word "point," suggesting competition... suggesting their might be a winner in the presence of Laura...

"Wait wait wait." Shouts Laura as my father gets up to begin the game, freezing him on his way to perform his charade. "One point for guessing correctly? Surely the person doing charade should get a point as well otherwise it's in their interest to make it hard."

"It's just a game Laura," Says my father "Just a bit of fun, no one's playing to win-"

"What's the point of having points then if we're not PLAYING TO WIN?" She asks, making a mocking imitation of my father's voice as she quotes him.

"Ok I guess the person doing the Charade could get a half point." Says my Step-mother.

"Only a half point?!" Gasps Laura, as if my Step-mother had suggested ritually disemboweling the cat.

"Look Laura," begins my father "Just leave it, you've been ridiculously and unecessarily competitive this entire day, about presents, about food and now about this game. It's a just a fucking game you soppy cow. If you really want we can just give you twenty points every time any gets a point so you're assured of winning, is that what you want? Because it damn well sound like it.

For the fourth time that day Laura begins to scream and cry. A forty year old woman, crying over points in charades game. Everyone simply rolls their eyes this time.

"I knew it!" She wails. "All of you! All of you are against me, all of you want me to fail, I hate you all." She runs like an angry teenager at my father and swipes the charades cards out of his hands then flounces out of the room. Unfortunately for her she flounces a little too much and trips. Her legs go from under her and she strikes her head on the door handle making a deep gash in her forehead. She falls cracking her jaw and squealing before going unconscious, sprawling out of the door way her blood streaked on the carpet and her clothes.

Everyone sits in silence for a few seconds looking at Laura's prone form.

"I think we have a winner." I say mildly.