Fleabag: The Original Play E-Book

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

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

Seitenzahl: 52

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

'I sit on the loo and think about all the people I can have sex with now. I'm not obsessed with sex. I just can't stop thinking about it.' The Fleabag bites back. A rip-roaring account of some sort of female living her sort of life. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's debut play is an outrageously funny monologue for a female performer. Fleabag premiered at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performed by Phoebe herself, before transferring to Soho Theatre, London, for the first of several successful runs, followed by UK and international tours, a sold-out run in New York and a West End run in 2019. Fleabag won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh, the Most Promising New Playwright and Best Female Performance at the Off West End Theatre Awards, The Stage Award for Best Solo Performer and the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright. It received a Special Commendation in the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. In 2016, Fleabag was turned into a wildly successful and 'utterly riveting' (Guardian) BBC television series, with a second series following in 2019. This edition features the original play, plus an introduction by the author.

Leseprobe

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

FLEABAG

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Introduction

Dedication

Note on Text

Fleabag

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Fleabag was first performed at Underbelly on 1 August 2013 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It transferred to Soho Theatre, London, on 3 September 2013 and was revived there on 7 May 2014. The cast was as follows:

FLEABAG

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

VOICE-OVERS

FEMALE VOICE

Holly Piggott

(RECEPTIONIST)

MALE VOICE

Adam Brace

FEMALE VOICE

(LECTURE-HALL TANNOY)

Charlotte McBrearty

LECTURER

Teresa Waller-Bridge

BOO (VOICEMAIL)

Vicky Jones

EX-BOYFRIEND

Charlie Walker-Wise

(TEXT MESSAGE)

Director and Dramaturg

Vicky Jones

Producer

Francesca Moody

Designer

Holly Pigott

Associate Designer

Antonia Campbell-Evans

Lighting Designer

Elliot Griggs

Sound Designer

Isobel Waller-Bridge

Associate Sound Designer

Max Pappenheim

Stage Manager

Charlotte McBrearty

PR

Chloé Nelkin Consulting

Introduction

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

I am obsessed with audiences. How to win them, why some things alienate them, how to draw them in and surprise them, what divides them. It’s a theatrical sport for me – and I’m hooked.

When Vicky Jones (director of the stage play/inimitable genius/excellent friend) and I were producing nights of short plays under our theatre company, DryWrite, we were forever scrabbling for new ways to put the audience in the centre of the experience.

Each experiment illuminated little tricks of how to construct a satisfying story. We would give briefs to writers, challenging them to elicit a specific response from the audience. It would change each time, but one, for example, was: ‘Make an audience fall in love with a character in under five minutes.’ Writers would write the monologues, actors would perform them, and each audience member would express their ‘love’ by releasing a small, heart-shaped, helium balloon at the moment they fell in love with the character on stage.

Each writer could measure their success by how many balloons floated to the ceiling of the theatre during their piece. At the end of the night we’d all then charge to the bar and discuss why some pieces succeeded over others. Whatever the experiment, the audience rarely behaved in the way we expected them to, prompting many fascinating conversations and debates about character, story and language that proved invaluable lessons in playwriting.

Over the years, we put on event after event, experiment after experiment, and at the heart of them were always the big questions about how to affect the audience. How do you make people heckle? How do you make people invest in one character over another? How do you make an audience forgive a terrible crime? There was one I was most intrigued by – ‘Funny/Not Funny: How do you make an audience laugh in one moment, then feel something completely and profoundly different in the next?’

It was this tightrope that I wanted to walk with Fleabag. When we were developing it for the Edinburgh Fringe, I was obsessively looking for ways to surprise the audience, to sneak up on them just when they least expect it.

I knew I wanted to write about a young, sex-obsessed, angry, dry-witted woman, but the main focus of the process was her direct relationship with her audience and how she tries to manipulate and amuse and shock them, moment to moment, until she eventually bares her soul.

Adapting Fleabag for TV in 2016 meant this same fundamental structure still applied, but experiments with the audience took another interesting turn and Fleabag’s relationship with the audience intensified.

In theatre, people come to you, or your characters. In TV, characters arrive in people’s living rooms, their kitchen tables, and are often even taken into bed with them! It’s a very intimate way of communicating with an audience and a privilege to experiment with. With this in mind, I was determined for the audience of the TV series to feel like they were having a personal relationship with Fleabag – hence the audience address – and the absolute ideal situation was that at the beginning you should feel she wants you there and by the end, that she wishes she hadn’t let you in. A feeling I imagine lots of people have felt after spilling it all out to a stranger.

If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you get a lot for free from an audience if you make them laugh. The power of comedy is astonishing to me – how it can disarm an audience and leave them wide open and vulnerable. Ultimately, for the Fleabag audience, I wanted the drama of this woman’s story to leap into their open, laughing mouths and find its way deep into their hearts.

This piece was originally written for the BBC Daily Drop in 2016.

To Vicky Jones

Note on Text

Other characters can be recorded voices, played by other actors or played by Fleabag.

Pauses and beats are indicated by the space given between lines.

Lights come up on FLEABAG.

She is out of breath and sweating.

FEMALE VOICE. He’s ready to see you now.

FLEABAG. Thank you.

FLEABAG attempts to hide that she is overheating.

MALE VOICE. Thanks for coming in today. Really appreciate you sending in your CV.

FLEABAG. No problem.

MALE VOICE. It was funny!

FLEABAG. Oh? Okay. That wasn’t my intention, but –

MALE VOICE. Great. Our current situation is unusual in that… we don’t have many… any women working here. Mainly due to the –

FLEABAG. Sexual-harassment case.

MALE VOICE. Sexual-harassment case, yes. Are you alright?

FLEABAG. Yes, sorry – I ran from the station. Just a bit hot. Sorry. I’m really excited about –

MALE VOICE. Water?

FLEABAG. No, I’m – I’ll be okay – actually, yes please, that would be great.

Over the next speech, FLEABAG pulls her jumper halfway over her head exposing her bra. She realises she doesn’t have a top on underneath and she attempts to pulls her jumper back down as if nothing had happened.