Brave New World s4

Brave New World an adaptation of Aldous Huxley's novel by Paul Stebbings and Phil Smith for American Drama Group Europe & TNT theatre Britain.

SYNOPSIS 2012

CHARACTERS:

Bernard Marx Helmholtz Fanny/Linda Lenina The Director/John the Savage. Epsilons, Deltas, Savages, Policemen played by all.

Scene 1

On stage is a constuctivist machine-like structure made out of poles which can be spun and hung upon. A humming electronic music begins to be heard. A gas masked policemen orders Epsilon workers to take their soma tablets and announces the beginning of leisure time entertainment.

Bernard and Lenina, two Alpha plus members of the elite, enter through the auditorium. They ask the policeman the way to the Alpha Beta Disco cathedral. The policeman pats Lenina and she thanks him. Lenina expresses her contempt for the Epsilons.

Inside the Disco Cathedral, Fanny and Helmholtz are dancing a strangely clinical, but highly physical dance; a courtship dance, but more gymnastic than romantic. Lenina and Bernard enter and join in. They squirt each other with aerosol sprays and their bodies burst into erotic movements. Helmholtz stalks Fanny around the dance floor. Lenina cries out to Bernard to squirt her with the spray, but Bernard is not in the mood; nevertheless he consents. When Lenina tries to squirt him he dodges out of the way, and rushes over to Helmholtz, appealing to him to help distract Lenina. Helmholtz is surprised, but Bernard explains that he wants to get to know Lenina before having sex with her. He wants “mystery”.

Helmholtz rescues Bernard, who makes a date to play obstacle squash with Lenina as he leaves. Lenina and Fanny talk; similarly to Bernard, Lenina is also keen to get to know her lovers. But Fanny objects to such interest as “bad manners”.

Scene 2

The stage is bathed in red light, and huge test tubes with embryos are spun by Epsilon workers.

Bernard is being criticised by his Director. Bernard’s students are late. The students, including Lenina and Fanny, enter. The Director marches the students from machine to machine at speed. The Director explains that the breeding hatcheries of London produce genetically, socially and intellectually separate classes of future humans: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. He repeats the slogan: “Even Epsilons are useful! We couldn't do without Epsilons! We couldn't do without you.” Bernard explains the mechanics; that the elite classes are created individually, while the Deltas and Epsilons are cloned in batches from single cells.

The Director leads the students in chanting: “Community, Identity, Stability!” The Director encourages Bernard to have sex with Lenina.

The Director instructs Bernard to demonstrate how Deltas are mentally conditioned using an apparatus. He creates terrifying associations with books and flowers, to ‘free’ a Delta baby from the enjoyment of culture or nature. The students chant: Consume, consume we know what me must do! Buy, buy, I must have something new!”

Bernard is forced to explain how babies were once conceived through sexual intercourse and brought up in families: this causes disbelieving laughter among his students. However, Bernard takes his descriptions too far, describing how the dead were once buried in graves rather than being sent to the fertiliser factory; the Director becomes angry and loudly dismisses the class, waking the babies.

Scene 3

A pseudo-religious Solidarity Service is conducted, “Ford” and “Freud” who are worshipped. Soma tablets are taken. Bernard finds Helmholtz and tells him that he wants to invite Lenina to go with him to the Savage Reservation. Helmholtz confesses to Bernard that he has been “anti social”, he has resigned from all his committees; he wants to spend time alone. Bernard is shocked. Helmholtz is worried; if his motivations are guessed by the authorities he will be in serious trouble. Helmholtz speaks of his feelings about there being more to life than the sensual entertainments on offer. He has become sickened by his work as a pornographer and advertiser. Nevertheless he and Bernard feel obliged to join in an “Orgy Porgy” of ecstatic dancing, in which Bernard performs unconvincingly. Then the service becomes a sexual orgy; all pair off leaving Bernard alone, frustrated.

Scene 4

A seaside sports course. Lenina complains to Bernard that her obstacle squash racquet is old – she has only had it a week. She shows off a new set of gloves. Bernard wants them to stop and look at the sea together, but Lenina cannot understand why: “You can't buy a wave!” Lenina wants to play obstacle squash with the Director, but Bernard distracts her with an invitation to the Savage Reservation. Lenina accepts enthusiastically, but Bernard is shocked when Lenina then accepts the Director’s invitation to take a shower with him. Lenina reveals Bernard’s invitation to the Director, who blesses the trip: “More is the law!”

The Director confides in Bernard that he once took a woman called “Linda” to the Reservation, but she disappeared and was never found. The Director warns Bernard not to waste time thinking, to take sport seriously and to treat sex like a game. Bernard goads the Director until he threatens to send Bernard to Iceland if he takes Lenina to the Savage Reservation.

Scene 4

Lenina and Bernard journey to America from the London Heli-Rocket pad. They arrive at the North American Savage Reserve and decide not to join a robot tour, but to explore by themselves. They enter the jungle; Lenina is shocked by the lack of “cleanliness”.

Bernard begins to seduce Lenina, but the sound of drums interrupts them. Two dancers burst out onto the stage in hoods and feathers and perform a violent dance. Lenina is disgusted, and is then appalled to discover that she has run out of soma. Bernard finds everything wonderfully real. A new dancer - John – appears with a whip, asking to be accepted and whipped, but the Priest-dancer refuses: “You are not one of us!” John tells Bernard and Lenina, in Shakespearean prose, that he is lonely; the other “savages” refuse to accept him as a sacrifice to “Jesus-Pookong”!

An older woman, Linda, enters. When John greets her as “Mother” Linda is horrified. Linda explains that she came from London. She was brought by the Director, who deserted her. John is the Director's son. Bernard invites Linda and John to return with him and Lenina to London. They agree.

Scene 5

At the hatchery, the Director is addressing students on the theory of happiness: extending the cocooned bliss of the womb into adult life. Bernard wanders in and is denounced by the Director as a danger to the stability of society, due to his unorthodox views on soma, sex and obstacle squash. The Director threatens Bernard with being sent to Iceland. But Bernard beckons in Linda and the Director is publicly humiliated.

Interval. Scene 6

Bernard addresses the audience as if they were the audience for the grand gala opening of Helmholtz’s new Feelie (pornographic movie). Bernard has become a celebrity since he rescued John “the noble Savage”.

Fanny introduces the Feelie, ‘Ape Orgy in the Air’, and invites Helmholtz as director to say a few words. He shouts: “Words have no appeal - when you can feel feel feel!” John, who is present, becomes uneasy. He is introduced to Helmholtz who asks to read John’s volume of Shakespeare’s ‘Collected Works’. Lenina enters and meets John again and they sit together. Helmholtz goes off to read Shakespeare alone while the Feelie is started. But John destroys the Feelie equipment, disgusted by the sexual content of the Feelie. John ignores Lenina’s offer of sex, and Lenina leaves, confused.

Scene 7

A Doctor brings on a comatose Linda in a wheelchair. This is a hospital for the dying, where the old and sick are turned into compost and fertiliser. A child plays nearby: children are brought there to learn how to enjoy death. John joins his mother. Helmholtz appears, he has come to return John’s book. Linda has been taking soma and while it has reduced her screaming fits, the drug is killing her.

Helmholtz explains that he is in trouble. He made up some new rhymes; but this time it is a poem, not a jingle. At first disgusted by John’s love for his mother, he begins to understand; he leaves.

The Doctor feeds more drugs to Linda and takes her away in her wheelchair.

Helmholtz re-appears at the side of the stage and gently pushes Lenina forward to meet John, then leaves. Lenina takes a number of soma tablets and swallows them. When John sees Lenina he is overcome and throws himself at her feet. Lenina asks him to kiss her, but John refuses: “Not till I have shown that I am worthy of you!” explaining that in the Reservation it was necessary to bring a girl the skin of a mountain lion. When Lenina realises that John imagines he will marry her, she is horrified. But she tries to seduce John, who is in turn horrified, given that they are in a hospital for the dying. He is tempted then repelled. John grabs Lenina and throws her to the floor. Lenina runs off. The child enters and hands John a bag of compost made from Linda’s body. John rants against this “slave new world” and starts to throw handfuls of soma to the lower class workers in the audience. Helmholtz, unable to control his emotions, joins in. Bernard tries to stop a riot starting, calling for the police who enter and spray soma gas, arresting John, Bernard and Helmholtz. “Anti-Riot Speech Number Two” is triggered. The voice of the unseen speaker questions John about his dissatisfactions. The voice explains that “we don't like Shakespeare because he wrote about an unstable world... we have traded in our Shakespeare for Stability and Order. Happiness is better than tragedy... we have happiness and feelies! You have beauty, truth and a world in pain!

Bernard betrays John and Helmholtz rather than be sent to Iceland. But the police grab Bernard and drag him off anyway. The voice explains that Bernard will be sent somewhere warm, full of interesting, unorthodox people and palm trees. Helmholtz asks to be exiled to the cold of the Falkland Islands. But John is to stay, entertaining people: a novelty. John refuses and demands the right to be unhappy and to suffer. He grabs the belt from around his waist and begins beating himself.

Scene 8

A public event with media coverage. Fanny is presenting and commentating. In London’s industrial wasteland, John is beating himself. Large crowds have gathered. The crowd is goaded into calling for John to be whipped. Lenina pushes through the crowds and shouts to John “I love you, John, I need you John. I want to have your baby!” She begins to climb the construction on which John stands, but he denounces her and kicks her and she falls and dies. Fanny offers John the microphone. He quotes Othello's death speech:

“Soft you a word or two before you go I have done the state some service No more of that Speak of me as I am nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice Then must you speak of one that loved Not wisely but too well Set you down this and say besides That in Aleppo once where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian I took by the throat the circumcised dog And smote him thus.”

...and then slits his own throat. Fanny, the media commentator, is delighted.

THE END

Copyright Phil Smith & Paul Stebbings (script July 1998, synopsis 2012) Tel/Fax: 0044 1392 430572 (TNT). E mail [email protected]