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- Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Tempers are fraying in the scorching heat as a rural village is overwhelmed by noise, cars and day trippers… Scratch the surface and you'll find danger bubbling away. Matt Hartley's captivating short play Idyll was first presented as an open-air production by Pentabus Theatre Company in 2021. 'A compelling rural portrait put across with vigour' - Guardian
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Matt Hartley
IDYLL
NICK HERN BOOKS
London
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk
Contents
Original Production Details
Acknowledgements
Idyll
About the Author
Copyright and Performing Rights Information
Idyll was first produced by Pentabus and performed at Stokesay Court, Onibury, on 18 August 2021 before touring. The company was as follows:
Performer
Harry Egan
Director
Elle While
Designer
Lucy Sierra
Sound Designer
Dan Balfour
Lighting Designer
James Mackenzie
Assistant Director
Alessandra Davison
Associate Sound Designer
Dylan Winn-Davies
Production Manager
Fiona Hilton
Stage Manager
Kirsty Smith
Acknowledgements
Deepest thanks to Elle While, Sophie Motley, Harry Egan and the entire Pentabus team. I had the privilege of growing up in a village similar to the one in this play, so thanks to all those I went to school and grew up with for their unwitting inspiration, and of course my wife, daughter and family.
M.H.
The performer welcomes people, smiles hello, it’s informal, friendly. When ready…
THE STORY
Hello.
I want you to imagine you are looking at a map.
An Ordnance Survey map.
If it helps close your eyes. I promise I won’t use this as a chance to steal your bags and do a runner, leaving you with your eyes closed for fifty minutes.
Now, you can feel the map in your hand.
You can hear it crinkling as you unfold it, as you spread it out, onto your lap, your desk, your car bonnet, your…
(A gesture, whatever you’d do it on.)
Key thing is, this is not Google Earth, it’s not Street View. Not on your phone or computer.
You are not zooming in to see if it really is a swimming pool in that back garden.
It is paper.
It is tangible.
Real.
It has a universal language. Symbols that as you recognise them tell you a story of the land.
Of its geography.
Now, if you are that person who unfolds the whole map out.
Takes up all the space around you, or what you have spread it out on.
(They demonstrate the act.)
We all know that person, might even be sat next to them. They will be a man.
Well curb your natural instincts – less in this case is definitely more.
What is in front of you is a map that is about eight squares across and twelve upwards – sounds like I’m describing a game of battleships – imagine the size of Countrylife – is that a useful reference?
A magazine. A4 paper.
And not to be patronising, sure you all do know, but in case my sister is here, each of those squares equates to one kilometre.
So, what you are looking at is an area that is eight kilometres east to west, twelve south to north.
Now as you look at this section of the map what you are seeing is a lot of green.
That is your first impression.
Green and various shades of it.
And in case it wasn’t clear what all this green represented, hundreds of minute little sketches of trees fill large swathes of it.
The other predominant colour is white. Huge swathes of white.
Resting within all of this, taking up almost one square, in the centre of this page, is a light-blue circle. Not perfect. Imagine a small child has attempted to draw a circle – that is the shape.
From there a blue line snakes its way down till it leaves just east of the centre of the map.
You know by looking at the map there are no major roads in this area.
It is a land of B roads; of bends and turns, of walls and hedgerows sometimes higher than the car itself.
The contours on the map and the gaps between them tell you that this is an area of peaks and troughs. Of dips and sways.
You know by looking that this is a place where the idea of rolling mobile phone coverage is non-existent.
You know that a primary school closed recently because it was deemed unviable.
You know that a bus only stops along the routes twice a day rather than the six it once did.
But you also know that it is beautiful. And every day animals roam and fill the land with their own laughter and song.
You know that the area changes colours throughout the year, dark reds and oranges of autumn, the bright dazzling yellow of spring.
And you know that it is these qualities that make people visit it from all over the world and stare at the houses and hills and fields and streams and woods – its silence – and dream of living in such a place.
Now I want you to focus on two squares.
East 3 and 4. South 2.
This is the second largest village on the map.
If by looking at its sprawl and the sketchings for houses, you had guessed a population of five hundred people, you should buy a lottery ticket tonight, as the official population at the last census was five hundred and seven.
