it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Lucy Kirkwood

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

A luminous journey exploring the life of Dijana Polancec: professional romantic, eternal optimist and accidental prostitute. Winner of the John Whiting Award, 2010 Produced by acclaimed theatre company Clean Break. it felt empty premiered at the Arcola Theatre, London in October 2009. 'unflinching... theatre that provokes in the best way, without lurid melodrama or sentimentality, but with wit and tenderness... demands that we watch and listen' The Times 'superb... deeply painful and profoundly disturbing' The Stage

Leseprobe

Lucy Kirkwood

it felt empty when theheart went at first butit is alright now

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Author’s Note

Original Production

Characters

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Author’s Note

This play was created in close collaboration with the director and design team of its original production. We had a large warehouse space at our disposal, and the stage directions reflect this – I think it would be just as possible to produce the play simply in a single studio space.

The sections in which Dijana speaks in her native language can be done in any tongue you deem appropriate – but it may be of interest to know that in the original production, Dijana was Croatian, and that is represented in the text here. The women who fall prey to traffickers most often do because of their hope and ambition to improve their lives – this is often related to the wealth of their country, but not exclusively so, and while Dijana is statistically more likely to be Albanian or Moldovian, we felt this to be retreading ground covered elsewhere.

Whilst elements of it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now are inspired by real-life events, all characters, their names and incidents portrayed are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to the name, character or history of any person is coincidental and unintentional.

it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now was first performed at the Arcola Theatre, London, on 7 October 2009, with the following cast:

DIJANA

Hara Yannas

GLORIA

Madeline Appiah

Director

Lucy Morrison

Designer

Chloe Lamford

Lighting Designer

Anna Watson

Sound Designer

Becky Smith

Characters

DIJANA, Eastern European

GLORIA, West African

Note on the Text

A forward slash (/) in the text indicates the point at which the next speaker interrupts.

PART ONE

You pay some money. You wait your turn. You are led into a room. You are given a letter. The letter is written by somebody who dots their ‘i’s with little hearts.