Holes E-Book

Tom Basden

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

Seitenzahl: 97

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

An absurd, hilarious and fast-paced comedy by the writer of some of Britain's most acclaimed TV comedies. Flight BA043 has crashed on an island. Stranded, four survivors wait. Surely somebody will find them. Planes don't just disappear, do they? And, if no one's coming... what do they do now? Tom Basden's razor-sharp comedy Holes opened at the Arcola Tent, London, in July 2014, following a run at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Leseprobe

Tom Basden

HOLES

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Author Thanks

Epigraph

Original Production

Characters

Holes

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Phillip Breen

This play was written long before flight MH360 went missing. Long before we started re-worrying about the global consequences of local military skirmishes. Long before ‘conscious uncoupling’ had entered the lexicon and Coldplay had released Ghost Stories.

Tom Basden’s play There Is A War (National Theatre, 2011) was written before we collectively looked on from the sidelines at the crisis in Syria, utterly bewildered, wondering who was right, who was wrong, who was who and how the thing could possibly ever end.

Party (London, Edinburgh, Sydney 2009) – in which a clueless dolt who’d never had to consider responsibility of real power ends up in a position of leadership after an electoral deadlock – was written a long time before ministerial limousines were driving Liberal Democrats around Westminster.

Tom Basden is one of the sharpest observers of politics and society around. This is the thing that makes him appear clairvoyant. And one the aspects that make directing a Tom Basden play satisfying and unnerving. Today’s jokes frequently become tomorrow’s real-life nightmares.

June 2014

Author Thanks

To Phil, Debbie, Simon and Megan.

Nothing evokes the end of the world more than a man running straight ahead on a beach, swathed in the sounds of his Walkman, cocooned in the solitary sacrifice of his energy, indifferent even to catastrophes since he expects destruction to come only as the fruit of his own efforts.

Jean Baudrillard

Holes was first performed on 4 August 2013 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The cast was as follows:

GUS

Mathew Baynton

ERIN

Bebe Cave

IAN

Daniel Rigby

MARIE

Katy Wix

Director

Phillip Breen

Designer

Rhys Jarman

Lighting Designer

Emma Chapman

Sound Designer

Andrea J Cox

Produced by

The Invisible Dot Ltd

Holes was first performed in this revised version on 16 July 2014 at the Arcola Tent, London. The cast was as follows:

GUS

Mathew Baynton

ERIN

Sharon Singh

IAN

Daniel Rigby

MARIE

Elizabeth Berrington

Director

Phillip Breen

Designer

Rhys Jarman

Lighting Designer

Joshua Carr

Sound Designer

Andrea J Cox

Produced by

Debbie Hicks, Oliver Mackwood & Jesse Romain

Characters

MARIE, thirty-eight

IAN, thirty-three

GUS, thirty-two

ERIN, sixteen

The action takes place on a beach. On one side of the stage is the sea and on the other is the island.

There should be lots of sand. The characters have to be able to dig.

The sand should be untouched when the play starts. Bags and cases should appear between scenes.

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

One

Pale sunlight. A beach. The sound of birds and waves. GUS sits wearing a distressed suit, his arm in a sling made from his tie. On the other side of the stage sits ERIN, curled up into a ball, staring out to sea. MARIE lies on the sand next to GUS, asleep, also in officey clothes – filthy and tattered. Another man’s suit jacket lies on the sand next to GUS.

IAN appears at the back of the stage in his shirt and trousers. He has a holdall and a green-plastic case, which he throws down. He has an air of deadly seriousness.

IAN. Is everyone alright?

GUS. Oh, fuck off, Ian.

IAN. Pardon me?

GUS (gesturing offstage). They’re all dead!

IAN. Yeah, I didn’t mean them –

GUS. Of course they’re not bloody alright!

IAN. I wasn’t asking the dead. Clearly. I meant us lot.

GUS. Well, don’t say ‘everyone’ then. There are only three of us.

IAN. Alright, chill –

GUS. You’re not in charge.

IAN. I didn’t say I was in charge –

GUS. You’re trying to make out like you’re looking after us or something –

IAN. I… What am I meant to say then?

GUS. Asking if everyone’s alright is what, you know, the main character in a film would do.

IAN. What do you want me to say then?

GUS. Nothing. Don’t say anything.

IAN. Literally just asking a question. Anyway, there are four of us, so…

IAN gestures to ERIN on the other side of the stage.

You alright there? Mate?

Nothing from ERIN. IAN looks back at GUS.

Got anything out of her?

GUS shakes his head. Beat.

And Marie’s not woken up yet?

GUS. Yeah she’s been awake for several hours now.

IAN. Okay. Terrific. Sarcasm. That’s really useful. In a crisis.

IAN crouches down next to MARIE.

GUS. What are you doing?

IAN. We should wake her up.

GUS. Why?

IAN. She might be in shock.

GUS. Then what?

IAN. Marie?

GUS. Leave her.

IAN. She won’t sleep later on.

GUS. Does that matter?

IAN. I’ll put her in the recovery position.

GUS. No, don’t move her. That might make her worse.

IAN. The recovery position might make her worse? I’ve heard it all now.

IAN goes to touch her.

GUS. Ian! Just fucking leave her.

IAN. Okay, look, I realise that this situation isn’t… ideal, Gus, but even so, you’re being extremely irritable and irritating to everything I say. And do. I know you’re shaken up and… so on, but –

GUS. I’ve broken my bloody arm.

IAN. And I’ve cricked my neck! Badly. But forgetting numero uno for a second, we’ve all, we’re all hurting, you know… (Gestures to ERIN.) She may very well be… no offence, mate, brain-damaged so… the important thing is that we don’t take it out on each other. We keep it civilised.

Psssh. IAN opens a tiny can of Sprite from his pocket. He holds it out for GUS. Beat.

Mini-Sprite. From the plane. Obv.

GUS takes it.

GUS. Thanks.

IAN. Pleasure.

IAN roots through the holdall.

Got some other stuff as well. Mini-Cokes, mini-pretzels, mini-nuts, or, well, normal-sized nuts but the bags are mini. Massive Toblerones. A torch. Found a torch. For night-time. Or for shining at ships. Morse-coding with them, you know…

GUS. Okay. Good.

IAN takes out a plastic bucket and spade.

IAN. Um… bucket and spade…

GUS. What?

IAN. From one of the kids’s hand luggages.

GUS. You’re going to make sandcastles are you?

IAN. No I’m –

GUS. What are you doing with a bucket and spade?

IAN. I’m going to dig a mass grave. For the dead so, you know… Got a problem with that? (Beat.) And I’m going to dig a well as well. For fresh water.

GUS (about the Sprite). This is fine.

IAN. We need a better solution than Sprite. We need to make a plan.

GUS. No we don’t.

IAN. In case we’re not found for some time –

GUS. They’ll find us. They’ll realise we’ve gone down and sort it out.

IAN. Well, who knows?

GUS. I know. I bloody know. Davidson needs us. He’ll sort this out.

MARIE wakes up with a start. She sit bolt upright.

MARIE. Ugh!

IAN. Marie. Are you alright?

MARIE. Oh my God, I can’t feel my arm.

IAN. Oh shit, really?

GUS. You were lying on it.

IAN. Yes, you were fainting on it.

She shakes it. Wincing. A lot of pain apparently. GUS watches her dispassionately.

What is it?

MARIE. Pins and needles. Ah God. That’s horrible.

GUS. I’ve broken my arm.

MARIE. Mm. Ahhh… (Flexes her fingers.) It’s coming back now.

IAN. Are you alright otherwise, Marie?

MARIE. I’m all sandy. Where are we?

IAN. Some kind of island or archipelago.

MARIE. Well… why?

GUS. The plane crashed.

IAN. We crash-landed.

MARIE. What?

IAN. I fireman’s-lifted you from the smoking wreckage.

GUS. As I say, I’ve broken my arm, so I couldn’t.

IAN. Gus broke his arm because his tray table was down –

GUS. Fell down.

MARIE. Um… are you serious?

IAN. About which bit?

MARIE. The plane crashed?

IAN. Yes, it did.

MARIE is stunned. She looks round and sees ERIN.

MARIE. Ooh. Is she with us?

GUS. What? Yeah, of course, she doesn’t live here.

MARIE. I don’t remember her from the plane –

IAN. I do. She was near us at the back. Probably hence why she survived.

MARIE. Who is she?

IAN. Don’t know. She’s not speaking. She may well be simple or foreign. Or both. Or shy.

MARIE (to ERIN. Loud). Parlez-vous Anglais?

IAN. No need for the vous form there, Marie, you’re much older than her. (To ERIN.) Hallo. Essen sie Deutsch? Fräulein?(To the others.) She’s not German.

MARIE. Well, I don’t remember her at all. I think I must have blacked up.

GUS. Blacked out.

MARIE. I certainly don’t remember a crash.

IAN. Well, it happened alright. I’ll tell you that for free. The little air masks popped down and everything –

MARIE. Oh, I’d love to have seen that.

IAN. Stuff flying around the cabin. G-force everywhere. It was properly intense. People screaming. Hugging.

MARIE. Oh wow. Did anyone hug me?

IAN. No.

MARIE. Mm. Good. (Beat.) I mean, I remember a blast.

IAN. I said it was a blast!

GUS. We don’t know what it was –

MARIE. I’m pretty sure there was a blast –

IAN. I’m certain there was –

MARIE. It sounded like a blast –

GUS. We don’t know.

MARIE. Was it a bomb, do you think, Ian?

IAN. Well, this is it!

GUS. It wasn’t a bomb.

IAN. The fuselage does look bomb-damaged.

MARIE. Where did it come from?

IAN. Well… who did it come from?

GUS. It could have just been the engine –

IAN. A bomb in the engine –

MARIE. Was it a terrorist, Ian?

IAN. We can’t rule out the possibility of a terrorist. Or terrorists.

GUS. Why would terrorists bring down a random passenger plane?

IAN. Why does anyone do anything?

GUS. What?

IAN. I’m saying, terrorists are arseholes. Half the stuff they do doesn’t make sense. And, you know, post-9/11, anything can happen.

GUS. That was into a building. In a city –

IAN. Two buildings. Technically.

GUS. This is the middle of nowhere.

MARIE. Well, we don’t know what it is. It could be the middle of somewhere.

IAN takes out his iPhone. It has a juice pack.

IAN. My location services aren’t working or I’d tell you where we are.

GUS. It doesn’t matter where we –

IAN. I can maybe work it out in fact…

GUS. No you can’t.

IAN. If we were heading to Sydney and the sun’s… over there…

GUS. You can’t work it out…

IAN. And the tide’s… coming in, so –

GUS. Irrelevant.

IAN. Mm. Once the stars are out I’ll have a better idea.

GUS. No you won’t. And anyway, people’ll be here long before that.

GUS looks skyward again. MARIE has a sudden thought.

MARIE. Oh! Are we going to miss the conference?

GUS. Maybe.

IAN. Probably.

GUS. We might make the end.

MARIE. Davidson will literally go ape.

IAN. We’ve got a shit-hot excuse to be fair. He can’t pin this on us.

MARIE. But what will they do? If we’re not there?

GUS. What do you think they’ll do? They’ll take credit for my work. Healey’ll say the data on debt obligations for millenials was hers –

IAN. Yeah, I mean, she was involved –

GUS. Like fuck she was. That was all me. I’ve been compiling that shit for the last nine weeks –

IAN. As have we all –

GUS. Carl won’t say anything, the bloody weasel.

MARIE. Don’t call Carl a weasel please –

GUS. He is a weasel.

MARIE. Yes, but that’s racist.

GUS. What? How is that racist? He’s not from anywhere.

MARIE. He is actually. He is from somewhere. As Head of HR, I made a note of it.

GUS. And weasels aren’t from anywhere either.

MARIE. He always eats very smelly lunches, doesn’t he, Ian?

IAN. Yeah, I think Carl’s ancestors are American Indian. Or Indian.