Stephens Plays: 2: One Minute; Country Music; Motortown; Harper
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Simon Stephens Plays: 2 One Minute, Country Music Motortown, Pornography, Sea Wall One Minute: ‘Set in London in the aftermath of the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl, One Minute brings together the girl’s mother, an unreliable witness, a student/barmaid and two investigating officers . the writing cleverly suggests how much the characters would like to connect but never really can.’ Guardian Country Music ‘spotlights four fateful moments in the life of Jamie Carris, an engaging but violent south Londoner. The play unfolds in a series of tightly focused two-handers, set before, during and after the prison sentences he has served for glassing one man and for killing another.’ Independent Motortown: ‘Danny – a squaddie who has served in Basra – is bringing the war back home [to] an England where the “war on terror” has become a war waged using the tactics of the terrorists. It is also a place of dubious moralities, small-time arms dealers and middle-class swingers and anti-war protesters. A searingly honest play written with a deadly coiled energy.’ Guardian Pornography: ‘Set in July 2005, between the announcement that London had been awarded the Olympics and the July 7 bombings, it tells seven entwining stories, including the imagined story of one of the bombers journeying towards London to commit an act of terrorism.’ Guardian Sea Wall: ‘A quietly gripping monologue about grief and belief . this play is like a deceptive calm blue sea beneath which lurks a ferocious riptide of sorrow.’ Guardian Simon Stephens is a British writer whose theatrical career began in the literary department of the Royal Court Theatre where he ran its Young Writers’ Programme. His plays for theatre include Bluebird (Royal Court Theatre, 1998); Herons (Royal Court, 2001); Port (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester 2002); One Minute (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2003, Bush Theatre, 2004); Christmas (Bush Theatre, 2004); Country Music (Royal Court, 2004); On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange, Manchester, and National Theatre, 2005); Motortown (Royal Court, 2006); Pornography (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hanover, 2007, and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 2008). His radio plays include Five Letters Home to Elizabeth (BBC Radio 4, 2001) and Digging (BBC Radio 4, 2003). Awards include the Pearson Award for Best Play, 2001, for Port; Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World, 2005, and for Motortown German Critics in Theater Heute’s annual poll voted him Best Foreign Playwright, 2007. His screenwriting includes Jackdaw and he is currently developing an original series for Channel 4. by the same author Christmas Harper Regan Herons On the Shore of the Wide World Port STEPHENS PLAYS: I (Bluebird, Christmas, Herons, Port) SIMON STEPHENS Plays: 2 One Minute Country Music Motortown Pornography Sea Wall with an introduction by the author Methuen Drama METHUEN DRAMA CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 This collection first published in Great Britain in 2009 by Methuen Drama Methuen Drama A & C Black Publishers Limited 36 Soho Square London W1D 3QY www.methuendrama.com One Minute first published by Methuen Drama in 2003 Revised in this volume. Copyright © 2003, 2009 Simon Stephens Country Music first published by Methuen Publishing Limited in 2004 Revised in this volume. Copyright © 2004, 2009 Simon Stephens Motortown first published by Methuen Drama in 2006 Revised in this volume. Copyright © 2006, 2009 Simon Stephens Pornography first published by Methuen Drama in 2008 Revised in this volume. Copyright © 2008, 2009 Simon Stephens Sea Wall first published by Methuen Drama in 2009 Copyright © 2009 Simon Stephens Introduction © 2009 Simon Stephens eISBN: 978-1-40811-478-0 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Country Setting, Kingsdown, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire Caution All rights in this collection are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made to Casarotto Ramsay, Waverley House, 7–12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ. No performance may be given unless a license has been obtained. No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the work are hereby granted and performance rights for any performance/presentation whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the written permission of A & C Black Publishers Limited. This book is produced using paper that is made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests. It is natural, renewable and recyclable. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Contents Chronology Introduction ONE MINUTE COUNTRY MUSIC MOTORTOWN PORNOGRAPHY SEA WALL Simon Stephens Chronology 1997 Bring Me Sunshine (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, and Riverside Studio, London) 1998 Bluebird (Royal Court, London) 2001 Herons (Royal Court): nominated for the Olivier Award for Most Promising Playwright Five Letters to Elizabeth (radio play, broadcast on BBC Radio 4) 2002 Port (Royal Exchange, Manchester): Pearson Award for Best New Play in 2001/2 2003 Digging (radio play, broadcast on BBC Radio 4) One Minute (produced by the Actors Touring Company, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield) 2003/4 Christmas (Pavilion Theatre, Brighton, and Bush Theatre, London) 2004 Country Music (Royal Court) On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange Manchester, and National Theatre, 2005 London): Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2005 2006 Motortown (Royal Court) 2007 Pornography (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hanover) 2008 Harper Regan (National Theatre) Pornography (Edinburgh Traverse Theatre, and Birmingham Repertory Theatre) Sea Wall (Bush Theatre) Introduction In the autumn of 2001 I worked at Wandsworth prison, in south London, teaching a course in playwriting. It was set up with the director Esther Baker whose theatre company Synergy specialises in working with prisoners. I taught with their creative-writing teacher, the playwright and political activist Anders Lustagarten. Before I started I was terrified at the prospect. I’d had, since childhood, a recurring dream of being sent to prison. I have no doubt this is quite a common dream. I can’t identify its specific starting point for me, though. Maybe it was the clang of the gates on the opening credits of Porridge that I watched as a kid. Probably it was something slightly darker than that. But whatever started it, there was something about prisons, especially those huge urban Victorian prisons dotted around London, that chilled me. The finality of the close of those doors and the size of those locks was horrifying. It was a horror that ran through me when I first arrived at Wandsworth. My terrified nervousness wasn’t relaxed by the guards on the desk there, who were officious at best, unfriendly often and occasionally downright aggressive. Nor by the fact that our sessions were to be carried out, Esther informed me, in the basement near where the gallows used to be. It was a nervousness that was, in fact, only eased by the charm and cheeriness of the prisoners. I worked with a group of about twelve men in total. Mostly they were in there on short or medium sentences. Mostly the sentences were for crimes of drug dealing or fraud. The men were sensitive to my nerves and seemed grateful to me for my commitment to teaching them. None more so than Ali, an avuncular Asian Londoner in his early thirties. He was a sharp writer, a good reader and a real wit. I remember Ali most for one session in particular. One morning, about halfway through the course, the guys were unusually late coming down from the wing. They were often five or ten minutes late but on this day I’d been waiting for about twenty minutes before the first of them arrived. It was Ali. He bounded in to the room. Shook my hand. There was a particular energy about him. ‘Did you hear what happened?’ he asked me. I’d been travelling for the last hour. I’d heard nothing. ‘This plane flew into the World Trade Center.’ It sounded like the opening line of a joke. Knowing Ali as I did, I expected it to be a very good joke so I awaited its punchline. A few moments later the head of education came to tell us that another plane had flown into the second tower. Ali’s face broke into an astonished grin. ‘It’s my brethren,’ he said, smiling ironically as he went to sit down to get ready to start the session. Four years later I was writing Motortown, the third play in this collection, at home in east London. It was a warm morning. The writing was going fairly well. I’d had a good day’s work the previous day, punctuated, or energised rather, by the news that London’s bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012 had been successful. The kids were at school. My wife was at the gym. I had the house to myself. I’d drunk about three cups of coffee so I stopped work to have a piss. I put the radio on. The morning phone-in on 5 Live had been interrupted by discussion of a power surge all over the London Underground. Then a young man rang the station to report that a friend calling him from Russell Square, in the centre of London, had just woken him up. A bus had exploded. It wasn’t a power surge that was affecting the Underground, the caller suggested, it was a terrorist attack. The phone-in host made it clear that the caller’s claims were entirely speculative.