Captain Corelli's Mandolin (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Louis de Bernières

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Cephalonia, 1941. Captain Corelli, an enigmatic young Italian officer, is posted to the idyllic Greek island as part of the occupying forces. Shunned by the locals at first, he proves to be civilised, humorous - and a consummate musician. The Captain is soon thrown together with Dr Iannis' strong willed and beautiful daughter Pelagia, who discovers all of the complexities of love, and how it can blossom in the most unexpected and profound way. Rona Munro's adaptation of Louis de Bernières' bestselling novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin was published alongside its West End transfer in 2019.

Leseprobe

Louis de Bernières

CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN

adapted for the stage by

Rona Munro

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Original Production

Characters

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

About the Authors

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Rona Munro

Adapting Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was a huge and weighty task. It’s a book that was and is beloved by millions. It also conveys vast amounts of history, has poetic and beautiful writing, and an enormous cast of characters, all beloved by the book’s many fans. A stage adaptation has to condense all of that into a couple of short hours. I have tried to produce a version that offers what, for me, are the strongest elements of the original, the things we all remember. Louis de Bernières’s book tells two beautiful and heartbreaking love stories. It shows us the true horror of war – ordinary people are overwhelmed by violence and horror or find themselves creating violence and horror – but yet it still convinces us of the value of love and community. And it evokes a sense of place, a magical place, the Greek island of Kefalonia. The magic of the first production, for me, was working with the incredible Melly Still and an extraordinary and talented cast. This allowed me to write stage directions of the most abstract and challenging kind, confident that the team would realise them theatrically. We also had the wonderful Harry Blake providing his own compositions and musical direction.

‘Pelagia’s March’ was, I think, always supposed to sound as Harry imagined it.

If you are reading this text with the thought of creating your own production I’d say follow the spirit but not the letter of the stage directions, they are a guide to finding your own theatrical solutions and hopefully you will have access to your own musical genius to help that process.

And if you love the book but mourn the absence of your own particular favourite moment or detail, I can only apologise but hope you’ll still find the spirit of what you loved in this adaptation.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was a co-production between Neil Laidlaw Productions, Church & State Productions, Rose Theatre Kingston and Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The world premiere was at Rose Theatre Kingston on 25 April 2019. The show toured to Leicester Curve; Theatre Royal Bath; Theatre Royal, Newcastle; Birmingham Repertory Theatre; King’s Theatre, Edinburgh; and Theatre Royal, Glasgow.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin opened at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End on 10 July 2019. The cast, in alphabetical order, was as follows:

PELAGIA

Madison Clare

OFFICER/SOLDIER/ISLANDER

Graeme Dalling

CARLO

Ryan Donaldson

FRANCESCO/SOLDIER

Fred Fergus

MANDRAS

Ashley Gayle

PRIEST/SOLDIER/ISLANDER

Eliot Giuralarocca

GOAT/SOLDIER/ISLANDER

Luisa Guerreiro

LEMONI/YOUNG IANNIS/SOLDIER

Kezrena James

DR IANNIS

Joseph Long

CAPTAIN CORELLI

Alex Mugnaioni

DROSOULA

Eve Polycarpou

SOLDIER/ISLANDER

John Sandeman

VELISARIOS/SOLDIER

Stewart Scudamore

GÜNTER/SOLDIER/ISLANDER

Kate Spencer

PSIPSINA/SOLDIER/ISLANDER

Elizabeth Mary Williams

Director

Melly Still

Composer

Harry Blake

Set and Costume Designer

Mayou Trikerioti

Lighting Designer

Malcolm Rippeth

Sound Designer

Jon Nicholls

Projection Designer

Dom Baker for OD Vision

Movement and Associate Director

George Siena

Casting Director

Jim Arnold CDG

Associate Sound Designer

Dan Hunt

Fight Director

John Sandeman

Production Manager

Lloyd Thomas

Costume Supervisor

Jackie Orton

Props Supervisor

Fahmida Bakht

Characters

IANNIS

CARLO

GOAT

PELAGIA

MANDRAS

VELISARIOS

DROSOULA

LEMONI

PSIPSINA

FRANCESCO

PRIEST

WOMAN

MAN 1

MAN 2

CAPTAIN

OFFICER

GREEK SOLDIER 1

GREEK SOLDIER 2

GREEK SOLDIER 3

CORELLI

ITALIAN SOLDIER

GERMAN SOLDIER

GÜNTER

ITALIAN SOLDIER 1

ITALIAN SOLDIER 2

ITALIAN SOLDIER 3

ITALIAN SOLDIER 4

GERMAN CAPTAIN

YOUNG IANNIS

And SOLDIERS, CIVILIANS, PARTISANS, TOURISTS

ACT ONE

Iannis and Pelagia’s Garden

IANNIS is in the garden outside his house, a tethered GOAT grazes nearby. He is writing. He pauses and reads what he has written.

CARLO is in the same place but another time. He too is writing. He reads what he has written.

CARLO. Captain Antonio Corelli… I tried to write this story so that you’d understand. This is my story, but it’s your story as well. You lived part of it with me.

I wasn’t sure where this story began.

I am now.

It begins with love.

It ends in Kefalonia.

IANNIS begins to read what he’s written and, as he does so, CARLO fades into the background.

IANNIS. The half-forgotten island of Kefalonia rises improvidently and inadvisedly from the Ionian Sea. It is an island so immense in antiquity that the very rocks themselves exhale nostalgia and the red earth lies stupefied not only by the sun, but by the impossible weight of memory. The ships of Odysseus were built of Kefalonian pine, his bodyguards were Kefalonian giants…

IANNIS puts down the papers and goes to take a piss on the patch of herbs behind him. When his back is turned, the GOAT moves over and eats his papers.

IANNIS sees and roars in protest.

Pelagia!

PELAGIA comes out of the house. She is in the middle of cooking.

Your accursed ruminant has eaten everything I’ve written tonight! Any more incidents like this and it’ll end up on a spit.

PELAGIA doesn’t react to this. She moves calmly to gather herbs.

PELAGIA. We’ll be eating at about ten o’clock.

IANNIS. Did you hear what I said? Control the goat or his days are numbered.

PELAGIA is picking herbs.

PELAGIA. You’re as fond of him as I am.

IANNIS. You will not argue with me. In my day no daughter argued with her father. I will not permit it.

PELAGIA. Pateras, it’s still your day. You aren’t dead yet, are you?

(Moving back into the house.) Please stop pissing on the herbs.

IANNIS. It’s good nitrogen.

PELAGIA. It’s horrible. I can’t ever wash them enough.

PELAGIA goes back in the house. IANNIS looks at the scraps of paper he has saved from the GOAT.

He looks reproachfully at the GOAT.

IANNIS. It was poetry. In Kefalonia we live on the bridge between the mundane and the immortal.

And that is why I write, now, with the shadow of my death just visible ahead of me. This is my life’s purpose now. It’s not enough merely to cure the body. I have to remind humanity how easily they can walk from the human to the eternal. You’ve eaten words that could have rescued humanity!

(Considering the GOAT.) No, there’s no comprehension, is there?

Look at your ignorant stare, nothing there but greed. No poetry. If a Kefalonian goat cannot appreciate poetry, no goat ever will. All Kefalonians are poets, it is in the air we breathe and the light that bathes us.

This is a new thought, IANNIS chases it.

Strangers who land here are blinded for two days. And then they understand the choice of Apollo as a favourite god of Kefalonia. Apollo the god of light…

IANNIS is gazing towards the sunset.

It is a light that seems unmediated either by the air or by the stratosphere. It is completely virgin, it produces overwhelming clarity of focus, it has heroic strength and brilliance…

It exposes colours in their original prelapsarian state, as though straight from the imagination of God in His youngest days, when He still believed that all was good.

This is light that can save the human spirit.

He’s no longer composing, now he’s voicing his thoughts.

I think today the world may need salvation.

IANNIS watches the sunset. PELAGIA comes to watch it too.

PELAGIA. It’s so peaceful.

IANNIS. If you followed the light of that setting sun you’d fly over Italy, where Mussolini, Il Duce, stares over at Greece with greedy eyes. You’d sweep over the battlefields of Europe where German tanks fill the evening air with the smoke of burning towns and villages.

PELAGIA. You’ve been listening to the radio in the kafenion again.

IANNIS. Of course.

PELAGIA. So I’m not allowed to enjoy a peaceful sunset.

IANNIS. You’re right. The war is hundreds of miles away. Not here.

There is a distant ‘BOOM’ of a cannon blast.

PELAGIA. What is it?

IANNIS. It sounded like a cannon.

We can hear shouting and yelling. MANDRAS howling in pain.

Now a small crowd hurries on, carrying MANDRAS. The huge figure of VELISARIOS follows with a large cannon, still smoking, under one arm. VELISARIOS is in ‘costume’, clearly a street performer.

All the following lines intercut and tumbles over each other.

DROSOULA, MANDRAS’s mother, is calling out to IANNIS, agitated.

DROSOULA. He shot him! He killed my son!

VELISARIOS. The road was clear when I fired! How was I to know Mandras would come round the corner?

IANNIS (to those carrying MANDRAS). Put him on the table. On his front. On his front!

LEMONI, a little girl of about nine, is bouncing with excitement.

LEMONI. Do it again! Make it go boom again!

PELAGIA is scolding VELISARIOS.

PELAGIA. What were you thinking, Velisarios! You could have killed someone!

DROSOULA (to IANNIS). Oh, doctor, don’t let my son die!

VELISARIOS. No one’s going to die! He’s just got some shrapnel in his arse!

At the same time, those carrying MANDRAS are trying to put him down. MANDRAS screams in protest.

MANDRAS. Ah! No! You’re killing me!

PELAGIA (to VELISARIOS). See! You’ve killed him!

VELISARIOS (to PELAGIA). You be quiet or I’ll put you in a tree!

LEMONI. Put Pelagia in a tree! Put Pelagia in a tree!

IANNIS. He’s just got some shrapnel in his arse!

PELAGIA. Be quiet, Lemoni!

DROSOULA. Save him, Dr Iannis! He’s all I have!

IANNIS. Will you all get out of here and let me do my work!

LEMONI. Will there be lots of blood?

IANNIS. I said go away, Lemoni!

Go. Away. All of you!

The little group of people starts to drift away. LEMONI lingers, staring in fascination at MANDRAS.

Reluctantly, LEMONI leaves.

DROSOULA. I’ll stay, doctor. I’ll stay and help him through the pain.

MANDRAS. Mother, don’t fuss, please, I’m fine.