breeze still going but nothing holding me back
I felt like all the estate’s eyes were on me
but killing the baby was just a silly mistake
We’ve all been there
When I got in
I made sure to phone 999 straight away
I waited for them to come round
I had a story in my head
I stared at the windows
I felt alright
The sky wasn’t exactly glowing but all the black clouds
they were diamonds
BUD TAKE THE WHEEL, I FEEL A SONG COMING ON
by Clara Brennan
This play was first performed at The Underbelly, on 5 August 2010, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, produced by Reclaim Productions and SPL.
FRANCES is a troubled sixteen-year-old who lives with her family in an old mill town, deep in the English countryside. She is pregnant to Liam (in his early thirties) who is apprenticed to her father, the local thatcher. FRANCES’ brother, Christian (in his late twenties), has returned after an eight-year absence hoping to develop the old mill for the company he works for. It has been a painful journey back as their father beat him savagely as a child. FRANCES has not exchanged a single word with her father since her brother left. In this monologue, FRANCES tries to bring Christian up-to-date with her life – at least, superficially. She begins by explaining the terms ‘Epic Win’ and ‘Epic Fail’.
FRANCES
Like – last summer I went to an ‘Epic Win’ party in a field out by White Farm with my mates. We camped. Some of them had just gotten back from this trip to Barcelona, my art teacher organised it. But I couldn’t go – which was an Epic Fail. I’m the only one that even had a job – shampoos and sets at fucking Snips, that lame-ass hairdressers next to Abbey National? I fucking hated it and I still didn’t have enough to go, pay for the bed and board and the flights. But I was the only one who knew who Antoni Gaudi was. I mean, Christie, that school’s still a fucking shit-hole! You know the director of the Architecture College Gaudi went to, said once: ‘ I don’t know if we’ve given the degree to a genius or to a lunatic. Time will give the answer.’ I thought that was brilliant, you know – half my teachers hate me and half of them think the sun like, shines out of my arse. You were the same, I remember. So in 1926, he, Gaudi, goes for a little walkabout like all days, and gets run over by a streetcar. He had no ID on him, and his clothes were old, the poor sod looked like a tramp, and so they took him to a hospital for poor people. Finally, at the very last minute, a priest recognized him. They always do, don’t they. Three days after, he died. A genius or a lunatic. Epic.
Ha, and my mate Georgina, I don’t think we were friends when you were at home we only met at Secondary, she saw a photo of his Sagrada Familia and thought she was going to fucking Disney Land! Disney Land, that’s just genius, isn’t it?! Anyway, my mates all come back saying how they’d had the most amazing time, like, ever? And how they’d gotten pissed with Mr Holdsworth, my art teacher, the one who’s obsessed with Bonnard’s wife in the bath? Anyway, they’d drunk sangria, and then this authentic Spanish thing, which is red wine mixed with coca-cola. So that’s what we were drinking last summer in a field full of crispy-coated cowpats. The usual glamour. We had a fire, there were guitars, we got wasted. I lost my virginity to my friend Dave. Yeah, Little Dave. But he’s my mate, it wasn’t anything. He can play The Beatles catalogue by ear. We sang the whole of Rubber Soul. We shared a tent. It was, curiosity. I mean, we were just kids. And the big surprise is – the incredible thing is – Dave didn’t tell anyone. And neither did I until now. And that’s weird for teenagers. It is. Believe me.
SENSE
by Anja Hilling (translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub)
from Theatre Café: Plays Two
Sense was first performed in the UK on 27 April 2009 (as part of Theatre Café) at Southwark Playhouse, London.
Sense follows the lives of a group of teenagers and their search for friendship, love and identity. Their experiences are separated into I. Eyes, II. Nose, III. Skin, IV. Ears and V. Tongue. PHÖBE’s story is part of I. Eyes. She meets Fred, who is blind, at an eighteenth birthday party and is drawn into his world. He asks her to go swimming at the lake and, on the way, she becomes obsessed with his eyes and how he must ‘see’ the world.
PHÖBE
Lost myself in his eyes for more than forty minutes. And it wasn’t like looking into anyone else’s eyes. It was different. It was one-way. No back and forth. No exchange. Nothing came back at me. And I didn’t notice a single one of the stops the train made. I’m not lying that’s the way it was. I was inside his eye-sockets. Disappeared into them for forty minutes. I didn’t see anything there or else I forgot everything. I haven’t the faintest clue what goes on in there. But I was there. Happily. And then full of rage. I find you excessive in your blindness. Unreachable exaggerated an overdose. Awful. Helpless and unspeakably elegant. I see you beneath the stars zipping headlong through a universe. Then tripping over the curb. Your hand that always misses. Your hand in my bloodstream. Your foot in the gap between train and platform. I see you stumbling through the night. Falling over stones on the way to the lake. Gliding through the Milky Way. I want to be close to you. Closer.
I want to know how much more there is.
Behind your eyes.
I have a thousand questions.
Is it bright or dark your world.
Does music move inside you.
Like a snake maybe or like a spider or something.
Do noises have a smell and what about me.
Can you smell me.
Am I a colour a sound a movement.
Am I three-dimensional.
What do you think when you hear my voice.
Do you imagine me. Have an image.
Where would it come from.
Do you even know what that is. An image.
Or is there just a desert inside you.
Where nothing can grow.
I really want to know that want to see that.
The landscape behind your eyes.
I want to see what you see.
See myself with your eyes.
Whiz through your eyeballs.
Explode
