Age is a Feeling (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Haley McGee

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Your life from the day you turn twenty-five through to your death. All the chances you get to change course and all the things you leave unsaid. Inspired by interviews with hospice workers, conversations with mystics and trips to the cemetery, Age is a Feeling is a gripping story that wrestles with the glorious and melancholy uncertainties of human life. A covert rallying cry against cynicism and regret, it's an uplifting exploration of chance, morality and living with verve. First performed at Summerhall during the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Haley McGee's one-person play was produced by Soho Theatre and directed by Adam Brace. Each performance was shaped by random selections made by the audience. This published edition, illustrated by Jason Logan, contains the full text of the play and offers readers a complete experience, as well as a blueprint for future performances.

Leseprobe

Age is a Feeling

HALEY MCGEE

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Age is a Feeling

Performance Notes

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Age is a Feeling was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, on 27 July 2022. It played at Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 3–28 August 2022, before transferring back to Soho Theatre on 6 September 2022 for a three-week run, returning for a four-week run from February 2023. The creative team was as follows:

Writer and Performer

Haley McGee

Director and Dramaturg

Adam Brace

Scenic Designer

Zoë Hurwitz

Lighting Designer

Daniel Carter-Brennan

Stage Manager

Rose Hockaday

Producer

David Luff and Maddie Wilson for Soho Theatre

PR

Chloé Nelkin Consulting

Short excerpts and work-in-progress performances of Age is a Feeling took place at Camden People’s Theatre, the Rosemary Branch Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre’s Fresh Ink series, Brainchild’s Hatch and Soho Theatre. It was commissioned by Soho Theatre.

No one gets to know everything about your life

Not even you

Here are twelve stories about what’s to come in your adult years

Starting when you’re 25, and going…

And today, you’ll choose which stories you’ll hear and which you won’t

You’ll choose the first two now

Good

That’s decided

Happy 25th birthday

In anticipation of your celebration

These flowers were collected from the cemetery

Along with this message for you:

Age is a feeling

You’ll feel it

When you turn 25

(And realise that one day you will die)

The feeling begins as fear

Do you know why? your father will ask, placing both his palms down on the table. Why they won’t let you rent a car until you turn 25?

You’ll shake your head, mouth filled with slightly dry chocolate cake. Mm mmn.

Because your brain isn’t done developing until now.

You’ll be celebrating this birthday in your childhood home, with your parents and brother And you won’t know it now, but you’ll never do this again

It takes about twenty-five years for your thinking to move from your amygdala to your prefrontal cortex.

Your mother gives you the eyebrows, He heard this on the radio.

So! 25 is the real beginning of adult life. Beginning!? I was a parent, with a mortgage, by the time I was 25! Alright, Mom. Your generation had it all figured out and we’re... Your older brother grins at you. We’re good for nothing. Oh no! You’re good for everything! Your mom will say, sliding her wine glass out of her own reach. And you’ll reply, Mom. It’s fine. I’m your favourite disappointment. Just give me time.

But a persistent sense that time is accelerating and you are not keeping up will burrow into your psyche And next thing, you’ll be consumed With fear Fear of your time running out Fear of your life being ripped from you, too soon: In a car crash Drowning in the bath Crushed by a falling piece of concrete on a Tuesday afternoon

You’ll fear dying from a disease—

Then be grateful when it’s not the thing you convinced yourself it was

Leaving the doctor’s surgery, you’ll truly understand

Your health is everything

But you’ll be back to drinking too much and sleeping too little in no time, because life is short and fuck it, you’ll sleep when you’re dead

And you’ll have ambitions to pursue but no clue how to tackle them You’ll try to reassure yourself that age is a feeling But you feel it You’re scared

You want to slow time down

Log every memory

Heed every lesson

Know everything

But you can’t

You don’t get to know everything

And no one gets to know everything about you, not even yourself

At 26, in the wake of your first shattering heartbreak (The one that teaches you that love is conditional) You’ll take solace at the dog park near your house You’ve always wanted a dog—but someone close to you was always allergic—and so in lieu of getting your own, watching other people’s dogs tussle and chase each other is good medicine for your broken heart And there, one day, sitting on the edge of the dog park

OYSTER

An acquaintance of yours will pass by, spot you ogling dogs, and stop to say hi

They’ll introduce you to the stranger beside them, a woman in a trench coat with dark eyeliner and a scar on her cheek

Which one is yours? the stranger will ask.

Oh—none. I come here when I’m feeling low.

That’s smart, the stranger will say. I’ll stay for a while.

Your acquaintance will leave and this woman, you don’t know, will stay

She’ll tell you she feels sorriest for sausage dogs

A tube of a torso balanced on teeny limbs—can you believe that’s been inbred from a wolf?!

Then suddenly she’ll stand, saying, I gotta go. I gotta give this guy’s wallet back.

That’s nice of you.

Yeah. Well. I found it at the bar where I work, and he has a donor card, so. I’m going to give it back to him.

You should come. We’ll have to take two buses but it’ll be fun.

You’ll travel with her, out of the city centre you know well, onto multilane roads you’ve never seen before, lined with strip malls

Grim, isn’t it? she’ll say. But much cheaper out here.

The odyssey winds you to the suburbs, through 1950s housing projects, as you chart more new terrain with this person

You will gawk when she tells you about her culinary experiments with cow heads

You will marvel at her obsession with entomology—the study of insects

She will name plant species as you pass them and regale you with tales of playing the fiddle in a cover band