Dances of Death E-Book

Howard Brenton

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

Seitenzahl: 104

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A gripping version of Strindberg's masterly, darkly hilarious depiction of the struggles and strains of marriage. Meet Edgar and Alice. Married for almost thirty years, theirs is a relationship of mutual explosive loathing. Strindberg's tale paints a compelling and bitterly funny portrait of a magnificently doomed couple, whose ongoing battle threatens not only their future, but that of their friends and children as well. Howard Brenton's Dances of Death includes both Part One and the rarely performed Part Two of this masterpiece of European theatre, condensed into a single two-act drama. The play premiered at the Gate Theatre, London, in May 2013.

Leseprobe

DANCES OFDEATH

August Strindberg

The Dance of Death Parts I and II

adapted byHoward Brenton

from a literal translation byAgnes Broome

NICK HERN BOOKS

Londonwww.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Characters

Part One

Part Two

About the Authors

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Dances of Death was first performed at the Gate Theatre, London, on 30 May 2013. The cast was as follows:

EDGARMichael PenningtonALICELinda MarloweKURTChristopher RavenscroftALLANEdward FranklinJUDITHEleanor WyldTHE LIEUTENANTRichard BeanlandDirectorTom LittlerDesignerJames PerkinsLightingWilliam ReynoldsSoundGeorge DennisAssistant DirectorTara RobinsonMovement DirectorQuinny SacksFight DirectorTerry King

Characters

THE CAPTAIN

ALICE

KURT

JUDITH

ALLAN

THE LIEUTENANT

Settings

PART ONE

Autumn.

A military base on a small island.

PART TWO

Summer. A couple of years later.

A house on the other side of the island.

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

PART ONE

Scene One

The inside of a round fortification tower built of granite.

In the background, double doors of glass set in a large gateway, through which can be seen a fortified seashore and the sea.

A window.

A writing table, upon it a telegraph machine.

Two dilapidated armchairs, a chaise longue, a small chair against a wall.

A large portrait of ALICE in stage costume on the wall. Also a large mercury barometer.

ALICE. Shall I keep the door open?

CAPTAIN. Up to you.

ALICE. Open, then. (A pause.) You’re not smoking.

CAPTAIN. I don’t know, lately strong tobacco’s got to my stomach.

ALICE. Smoke something weaker. You say it’s your only pleasure.

CAPTAIN. ‘Pleasure’? What does that word mean?

ALICE. I’ve not the faintest idea. (A pause.) Do you want a whisky?

CAPTAIN. Bit early. What’s for supper?

ALICE. How do I know? Ask the girl.

CAPTAIN. The mackerel should be in season soon. It’s autumn, after all. Outside… and inside. (A pause.) A mackerel, crusted skin gleaming from the grill, with a slice of lemon and a chilled, white burgundy.

ALICE. Poetic all of a sudden, darling?

CAPTAIN. Is there any burgundy left in the cellar?

ALICE. You drank it.

CAPTAIN. Better stock up then. Celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary.

ALICE. You’re not serious.

CAPTAIN. Naturally.

ALICE. It would be more ‘natural’ to celebrate thirty years of misery.

CAPTAIN. Alice my sweet, yes, it’s been horribly miserable but we’ve had good times. Now and then. And we must make use of the time we have left before it’s all over.

ALICE. You and I ‘over’? If only.

CAPTAIN. Don’t worry! We are over. It’s all dead. This marriage is dead… manure. Shovel it into a wheelbarrow, spread it on the garden.

ALICE. It would kill off all the plants.

CAPTAIN. Well, there we go.

A pause.

ALICE. Did the post come?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

The CAPTAIN pulls out envelopes.

ALICE. Is the butcher’s bill there?

CAPTAIN. You look.

ALICE. Eyes worse, are they?

CAPTAIN. Nonsense.

ALICE. Slackening of muscles in the eyeballs.

CAPTAIN. Rubbish.

ALICE (looks at the bill). Can you pay this?

CAPTAIN. Of course. Later.

ALICE. How late? In a year’s time, when you’ve got your weeny, weeny little pension? Or later than that, when your illness has come back…

CAPTAIN. What illness, never been ill in my life. A little… nausea. I’ve got twenty more years at least.

ALICE. The doctor doesn’t think so.

CAPTAIN. Doctor…

A pause.

ALICE. He’s throwing a party tonight.

CAPTAIN. I know the quack’s throwing a party, don’t harp on about it!

ALICE. We weren’t invited.

CAPTAIN. We weren’t invited because we don’t socialise with the quack, and we don’t socialise with the quack because we don’t want to, because I despise him and I despise his silly, goose-brained, always-with-a-new-hairdo wife. They are rubbish.

ALICE. Everyone’s rubbish to you.

CAPTAIN. People are rubbish.

ALICE. Well then, another evening in. (A pause.) Do you want to play cards?

CAPTAIN. Fine.

ALICE takes a pack of cards from a drawer in the sewing table and begins to shuffle.

ALICE. Just think, the doctor’s got the Army Band to play at his party.

CAPTAIN. That’s because he’s a wheedler, he wheedles his way in with the Colonel in the town. If only I could wheedle.

ALICE. I used to like Gerda. Then she turned vicious.

CAPTAIN. They’re all vicious. What are trumps over there?

ALICE. Put your glasses on.

CAPTAIN. They’re no use. Well? What…

ALICE. Spades are trumps.

CAPTAIN (disgruntled). Spades…

ALICE leads.

ALICE. She’s turned the wives of the new officers against us, they’ve really got it in for you and me.

CAPTAIN. Don’t care, I put up with it. I’ve always been a loner.

ALICE. Well, at least we’re alike in that. But I fear for our daughter, growing up without any society.

CAPTAIN. If she wants ‘society’ let her get it, in town. I took that! Have you got more trumps there?

ALICE. One! There!

CAPTAIN. Six and eight equals fifteen…

ALICE. Fourteen! Fourteen!

CAPTAIN.…six and eight equals fourteen. I’ve forgotten how to count. And two makes… sixteen… (Yawns.) You deal.

ALICE. Tired, darling?

CAPTAIN. Not at all.

ALICE listens in the direction of the door.

ALICE. You can hear the music all this way. (A pause.) Do you think they invited Kurt?

CAPTAIN. Well, he got here this morning so he’ll have had time to get his fancy dress suit out. Not that he’s had time to call on us.

ALICE. What’s all this about him being ‘Master of Quarantine’, are they going to make a quarantine station here?

CAPTAIN. Oh yes.

ALICE. Why don’t you tell me these things? God! (A pause.) Well, he’ll be important and he is my cousin, we did share the same name once…

CAPTAIN. A dubious honour.

ALICE. Don’t start on my family and I won’t start on yours.

CAPTAIN. No, don’t let’s get into all that again.

A pause.

ALICE. Doesn’t the Master of Quarantine have to be a doctor?

CAPTAIN. Not at all, he’s just a jumped-up civil servant, a bookkeeper with a flashy title. The perfect rubbish post for Kurt.

God knows what he’s been up to in America. Well, I haven’t missed him.

ALICE. Strange though.

CAPTAIN. What is?

ALICE. That Kurt should come back just in time for our thirtieth.

CAPTAIN. Why is that strange? Oh, I see, you mean because he brought us together.

ALICE. Well, he did.

CAPTAIN. Our matchmaker. Ha! Thought he was saving you, didn’t he.

ALICE. Stupid idea…

CAPTAIN. Well, we’ve had to pay for it, not him.

ALICE. Imagine if I’d stayed in the theatre. All my friends are famous now.

CAPTAIN. Right, a drink.

He walks over to the sideboard and makes himself a drink, which he takes standing up.

We should have a bar here, with a rail, I could put my foot on it, imagine I’m back in Copenhagen, in the American Bar.

ALICE. Do it, put in a bar with a rail. Copenhagen, wonderful days.

The Tivoli Gardens, the concerts, the lights, the dancing.

CAPTAIN. Tivoli evenings. You were so refined.

ALICE. A wife with refined tastes, a wife to brag about.

CAPTAIN. Hunh. (Drinks.) Listen, they’re dancing at the doctor’s, three-four time, the tubas… boom… boom boom.

ALICE. It’s the Alcazar Waltz. It’s years since I danced a waltz.

CAPTAIN. Think you could you still manage it?

ALICE. ‘Still’?

CAPTAIN. Well, I guess, like me, your dancing days are done.

ALICE. Nonsense, you may be decrepit, but I’m still in my prime.

CAPTAIN. We’ll light the lamps.

The CAPTAIN walks stiffly over to the desk and rings the bell. Nothing happens.

Where’s the girl?

ALICE (calls out). Jenny?

No one comes.

Jenny!?

No one.

Sulking in the kitchen.

CAPTAIN. I’ll light them myself.

He goes over and lights the lamp.

ALICE. Do you think she’ll go?

CAPTAIN. Wouldn’t surprise me.

ALICE. It’s your fault, you spoil the servants, you grovel to them. You always do to subordinates.

CAPTAIN. Well well.

ALICE. You crawl on your knees before your men and your sergeants but you attack your superiors. You’re a would-be despot with the soul of a slave.

CAPTAIN. Oh!

ALICE. Weak but vicious, like all tyrants. So you think she’ll go?

CAPTAIN. I do, unless you go out there and say something kind.

ALICE. Me?

CAPTAIN. If I go you’ll say I’m letching after the maids.

ALICE. If she goes, who’ll do the work? Me. Like last time. I’ll ruin my hands.

CAPTAIN. Forget your hands. If Jenny goes so will Kristin and we’ll never get servants out to the island again. The mate on the ferryboat bad-mouths us and scares them off. And if he doesn’t my corporals will.

ALICE. You and your corporals, they hang around in my kitchen expecting me to feed them, but you’ve not got the courage to throw them out…

CAPTAIN. No, mustn’t do that…

ALICE. Why on earth not?

CAPTAIN. I’ve got to keep them sweet, if they leave at the end of their service period, we’ll have to close up the cannon shop.

ALICE. That would ruin the island…

CAPTAIN. That’s why we officers are going to demand a subsistence allowance from His Royal Majesty.

ALICE. What, for you?

CAPTAIN. No, to pay off the corporals!

ALICE. What a squalid little fiddle. (Laughs.)

CAPTAIN. Oh yes, Alice, please laugh, just a little, it does us good.

ALICE. Yes. (A pause.) Would you like another game?

CAPTAIN. No, it bores me.

A pause.

ALICE. I’m really upset about Kurt. Why does our high and mighty new Master of Quarantine call on our enemies first?

CAPTAIN. Don’t talk about it, it’s pointless.

ALICE. But in the paper, in the ‘new arrivals’ column, they call him ‘the successful businessman’, so he must have made money.

CAPTAIN. A rich relative, that’s a first in our family.

ALICE. In yours maybe. There’s been a lot of money on my side.

CAPTAIN. He’ll have a really big head now, if he’s made a bit of a pile, but I’ll cut him down to size, I’m not going to bow and scrape.

The telegraph receiver begins to click.

ALICE. Who is it?

The CAPTAIN remains standing.

CAPTAIN. Quiet!

ALICE. Well? Go and look.

CAPTAIN. I can hear what she’s saying. It’s our beloved daughter.

He goes over to the instrument and taps out a reply. The machine continues to click for a while, then the CAPTAIN responds.

ALICE. Well?

CAPTAIN. Just one minute. (Gives a final tap.) She’s at the guardhouse in town, she’s not feeling well and she’s not at college.

ALICE. What again? What else does she say?

CAPTAIN. ‘Send money’, what else?

ALICE. Why does Judith want everything now? If she graduates next year she knows we’ll help her.

CAPTAIN. You tell her.

ALICE. You tell her.

CAPTAIN. What’s the use, daughters just do what they want.

ALICE. This one does in your house.

The CAPTAIN yawns.

Don’t yawn at me!

CAPTAIN. Why not? We say the same things every day, over and over. The yawn could mean anything, like ‘yes, my angel’ or ‘shut up, please, please just shut up, shut up, just shut up!’ (Shrugs.) Take your pick.

ALICE. You’re in a jolly little mood tonight.

CAPTAIN. Aren’t I. When’s dinner coming?

ALICE. Did you know the doctor ordered the party supper from town, from The Grand Hotel?

CAPTAIN. Grand Hotel? That means they’ll be having grouse, hazel grouse, the finest bird there is. But it’s barbaric what the locals do with it, frying it in bacon grease…

ALICE. Ugh, don’t…

CAPTAIN. So, how shall we entertain ourselves? Shall I dance for you?

ALICE. You’re far too far gone for dancing.

A knock on the door.

Who’s that? It’s late.

CAPTAIN. I don’t know, I’ll go and look!

He exits. ALICE winces. A pause. The CAPTAIN comes back on. He has a card in his hand, he conceals it.

It was Kristin, she said Jenny’s left.

ALICE. So I’ll be a maid in my own house again?

CAPTAIN. And I’ll be a servant.

ALICE (notices the card). What’s that? Is that a card? Is someone at the front door?

CAPTAIN. Don’t know, can’t read it.

ALICE (snatches the card). It’s Kurt, Kurt! Well, let him in!

The CAPTAIN goes out. ALICE arranges her hair.

CAPTAIN (off). Kurt! Come right on in!

ALICE winces. The CAPTAIN enters from the left with KURT. ALICE seems to come to life.

Here he is, the dog, the traitor. Welcome home, old boy, big hug.

ALICE. Welcome to my house, Kurt.

KURT. It’s been a long time.

CAPTAIN. Fifteen years! And now we’re two old farts.

ALICE. Kurt looks just the same.