buckets E-Book

Adam Barnard

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 63

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

How to fill what's left of your day. How to fill the rest of your days. Sick buckets, bucket rattling, bucket lists, buckets of love. Wry, emotive, funny and heartfelt, buckets is a play with a unique perspective on a universal dilemma: how do you deal with the fact that time always runs out? Across thirty-three interconnected scenes – some just a few lines, others mini-plays in their own right – buckets swings through a kaleidoscopic world of sadness and happiness, illness and health, youth and experience, kissing and crying, singing and dying. Adam Barnard's open-ended text can be performed by any number and composition of actors. buckets premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in May 2015.

Leseprobe

Adam Barnard

buckets

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Thanks

Dedication

Note on Text

buckets

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

buckets was first performed at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, on 28 May 2015, with the following cast:

Jon Foster

Tom Gill

Charlotte Josephine

Sarah Malin

Rona Morison

Sophie Steer

COMMUNITY ENSEMBLE

Shailla Barok, Hazel Collinson, David Croft, Janet Dare, Becky Flisher, Laura Hepworth, Mira Ihasz, Joyanna Lovelock, Jennifer Matthews, Angie Newman, Phoebe Rodrigues, Imogen Roux, Lois Savill, Samantha Scott, Danielle Thompson, Graham Williams

DirectorRania JumailyDesignerJames TurnerLighting DesignerElliot GriggsMusical ArrangementsCandida CaldicotSinging SupervisorSue ApplebyCasting ConsultantVicky RichardsonProduction ManagerStuart BurgessDeputy Stage ManagerSophie AcremanAssistant Stage ManagersBecky Flisher, Mica TaylorProduction TechnicianTJ ChappellCostume SupervisorKaty MillsProduction PhotographerRobert Day

Development of this play has been supported by the 2014 Leverhulme Arts Scholarship in association with the egg, Theatre Royal Bath; by the Orange Tree Theatre; and by the National Theatre Studio.

Thanks

The Leverhulme Trust and fellow 2014 Scholars, and all at the egg, especially Kate Cross, Katherine Lazare and Lee Lyford; all at the Orange Tree, especially Guy Jones, Paul Miller and Sarah Nicholson; the National Theatre Studio, especially Julia Thomas and Rachel Twigg; Nick Quinn.

The Devey family. Suzy Harvey. Dr Terry Matthews. Julia Woolley.

Various kind readers: Antony Antunes, Steven Bloomer, Hannah Boyde, Andrew Butler, Sophie Crawford, Nia Davies, Christopher Dickins, Nicholas Hart, Abigail Matthews, Jordan Mifsúd, Mark Oosterveen, Rebecca Pownall, Tara Robinson, Caitlin Shannon, Lisa Stevenson.

Sam Walters and Auriol Smith, for many things.

Rania for taking it to heart.

Margaret. William. Kelly.

For your very own limited-edition bonus scene from the buckets B-sides collection, apply to [email protected]

In loving memory of Rebecca Vassie

Note on Text

buckets can be performed by any number and composition of actors.

Gender, where referenced in dialogue, can generally be switched – ‘he’ for ‘she’, ‘mother’ for ‘father’, etc. Some singular voices could be made plural – ‘we’ for ‘I’, etc.

A line that’s just an ellipsis (…) is a moment where a speaker:

i) wants to communicate but can’t, or

ii) communicates without words, or

iii) refuses to communicate, or

iv) is otherwise occupied

Where a line ends without punctuation, a choice should be made.

A new paragraph usually indicates a change of speaker.

Everything’s an option.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

1. Doctor

Of course it’s up to you.

It’s up to me.

It’s your decision. It has to be.

I don’t know how to decide.

There are different schools of thought. About how clearly a child this age can understand the idea of – the concept of – their own death. About whether to know, is to add depression and anxiety to an existing suffering. Whereas some judge that the best thing, the right thing, is simple honesty.

You’re very – patient. You explain things well.

Thank you.

I’ve always meant to ask. Is that your daughter?

No. No it’s my girlfriend. My partner.

Oh.

It’s quite an old photo.

I never thought things were going to – nobody does, I suppose – when I think back to when I found out I was – I just couldn’t have imagined that having a child would be – I don’t know – oncology wards platelet counts nasogastric intubation vomit trays

I won’t pretend that anyone can really imagine what all this is like for you.

When he was three we were out for a walk and we found a bird all splatted on the pavement, it must have dropped out of the sky, you can imagine, its insides oozing over its wings. I tried to distract him steer him away but too late. He was, he was entranced. He looked at it and he said ‘It did all the things it wanted to, so it let its wings rest. Because flying’s hard Mummy.’ That’s – I mean not every three-year-old comes out with stuff like that, do they?

You know your child better than anyone.

The thing is, I think he could handle it. I’m just not sure I could. I’m not sure I could sit there and tell him. I’m not sure I could carry on, him and me, knowing that he knows, with it all out in the open. I think I’d find it easier to continue as we’ve been.

Of course things won’t be quite the same. We won’t be doing the same level of testing. Because we’re stopping treatment, he may have a brief upsurge. Where he has more energy and some of the symptoms that relate to the treatment – the vomiting, the diarrhoea, to an extent the tiredness – these things may actually get better, for a while. What you have therefore is a window, between the easing-off of these symptoms and the overall decline of his health. And this window might be a time to – if there are particular things he’s always wanted to do. Or that you’ve wanted to do together.

We have we did a

Yes.

But – it was all things we’d do when he got better. You know, climb Mount Everest walk to the South Pole see the penguins fly on a commercial spaceship. We’re not going to be able to do any of those things, are we?

Most people don’t manage to do those things even if they’re healthy. Even if they live to a hundred.

…

The danger in not telling him is he may get the impression, now that he is home more of the time and starting to feel better, that he is actually recovering. Which may demotivate him from doing things for which limited time remains.

It’s been such a long road, hasn’t it?

It has.

So many times I’ve sat in this… I feel like I’ve seen more of you these last few years than anyone. Anyone adult I mean. Well no not seen but – had a greater number of meaningful moments. I feel, in a strange way, that I’m going to miss you. Miss being here. That’s strange isn’t it?

I think it’s normal. If it’s useful I could recommend you, there’s this

Will you come to the. To the. Will you come to the

Yes. If you want me to be there.

And yet at some level I hate you.

Well, I

You are so calm. You show no emotion when you deliver information that hits me like a train, like a high-speed train and you’re just. So. Smug. So – certain. Of medical facts. Of probable outcomes. Of what you know and who you are and what you do and why you do it. Because you grew up in time. Didn’t you. You got it right. When you were seventeen. Sixteen. Younger. The choices you made. The exams you sat. That decision to do something so very hard but so very rewarding. You’ve set yourself up, and I’m not saying it was easy but now you’re all charged up and your whole life’s running on its own. And one day you’ll look back and say, Yes. I did okay. But I, I, I. I don’t believe you need your glasses I think they are a prop. Your girlfriend is too young. Your shoes are too shiny. You have too many pens. You’re just so obviously

No I understand, I do, I

Oh god I’m sorry. Why did I do that? I feel sick. I’m so sorry. I wish I

2. Forward Planning