Jez Butterworth Plays: One E-Book

Jez Butterworth

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Four full-length plays and two previously unpublished shorts from the multi-award-winning author of Jerusalem. Jez Butterworth burst onto the theatre scene aged twenty-five with Mojo, 'one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years' (Time Out). This first volume of his Collected Plays contains that play plus the three that followed, as well as two short one-person pieces published here for the first time – everything in fact that precedes Jerusalem, 'unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' (Guardian). Plays One includes: Mojo, staged in 1995 but set in the Soho clubland of 1958, 'superbly captures the atmosphere of the infant British rock and roll scene where seedy low-lifers hustle for the big time' (Daily Telegraph). It is 'Beckett on speed' (Observer) by a 'dramatist of obvious talent and terrific promise' (The Times). The Night Heron (2002) is set in the Cambridgeshire Fens amongst assorted oddballs, birdwatchers and the local constabulary. 'It's funny, it's sad, it's haunting and it also strangely beautiful. Above all, it is quite unlike anything you've ever seen before' (Daily Telegraph). In The Winterling (2006) a gangland fugitive is visited by two associates from the city who have other things on their mind than a jolly reunion. 'The dialogue is testosterone taut, a sense of menace invades every conversation... and as tales of torture and treachery unfold, the black comedy never misses' (Time Out). Leavings(previously unpublished), a short monologue about an old man whose dog has gone missing. The housing estate in Parlour Song (2008) is 'a place of illicit desire and painful memories, of bad dreams and mysterious disappearances... a play that combines the comic, the erotic and the downright disconcerting with superb panache' (Daily Telegraph). The Naked Eye (previously unpublished), a short monologue about a family preparing to watch Halley's Comet as it passes through the night sky. Introducing the plays is an interview with Jez Butterworth specially conducted for this volume.  

Leseprobe

JEZ BUTTERWORTH

Plays: One

Mojo

The Night Heron

The Winterling

Leavings

Parlour Song

The Naked Eye

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Interview with Jez Butterworth

Mojo

The Night Heron

The Winterling

Leavings

Parlour Song

The Naked Eye

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

An Interview with Jez Butterworth

The playwright talked to Nick Hern on the eve of the reopening of Jerusalem in the West End in October 2011.

Can we start when you’re twenty-five, which is when you write Mojo? Do you want to say how that came about?

I left London and moved to Pewsey in Wiltshire, which ended up being the fictional model for Flintock in Jerusalem. It was a dreamlike experience: I left London with the unrealistic dream of writing a play which spoke to people. And that’s kind of what happened.

It was very odd – to spend this period of utter penury through the winter out in the countryside, writing every day and every night, no television, no car, only a bicycle...

But Mojo is a very urban play. Where did that come from?

The actual initial impetus for the play was a conversation I had with Malcolm McLaren. He was talking about Soho and the wonderful collision between early rock and roll and gangland violence. It wasn’t something I knew anything about, but there was something about the collision between these two things that sparked something. Who knows where plays come from, but in this case it came from Malcolm.

What I didn’t want it to be was about gangsters. I wanted it to be about people who think they are – or who possibly know – gangsters, but aren’t. Because they’re a bunch of children, everyone in the play: it’s like a school playground game really. Sweets and Potts aren’t gangsters. Skinny’s not a gangster. Nobody in it is, really. Baby’s just a lost soul... It was always taken as a gangland play, but it’s not at all.

So you sent it to the Royal Court?

My agent at the time, Nick Marston, sent the play to the Bush, and Dominic Dromgoole [then artistic director of the Bush] mentioned it by mistake in conversation with Stephen Daldry [then artistic director of the Royal Court], and Stephen Daldry just poached it.

So the play was virtually fast-tracked onto the stage? It was, as you say, a dream come true.

I finished the play in January. In February I was sitting in an office at the Royal Court with Stephen and Ian Rickson.

He’d been brought in to direct it?

Ian wanted to do it and to do it on the main stage. I went through a process of rewriting it for a week and then they decided they were going to stick it on the main stage. I moved back to London on May 1st, on May 2nd I won the George Devine Award, and we started rehearsing a month later. And a month after that it was a sell-out.

So no wonder in the photo on the front of this book, which is you outside the Royal Court at that period, you’re looking a bit...

...shell-shocked.

Exactly: shell-shocked!

And then me and the Royal Court kind of parted company... I directed a film of Mojo the next year. And lost touch with Ian, partly, I think, because Ian had wanted to do it. I don’t think I was very sensitive about it at the time. It was a good long while before I set foot back in the Royal Court.

And you were writing a large number of screenplays during this absence from the theatre?

Yes, lots of screenplays – lots of which didn’t get made, lots of which were working on other people’s things. I realised by the time I was thirty-three, thirty-four that I’d taken a wrong turning. Some dreadful cocktail of fear and being paid just enough money meant that I had completely wheel-clamped my creative desire to go in any direction that was going to satisfy me. And I had to own up to that. So it was around that point that I moved back to the countryside.

Was there a Road to Damascus moment?

There was a moment in 2003/2004 when the music I was trying to listen to didn’t sound as good: troubling rather than nourishing. I’d started lying to myself about something to do with my nature and what I want, and I’ve got to go and find it out. And so the next year or so was a fairly fearless swan-dive into a place where I felt I could write a line that was true and resonated with my own heart rather than being the right length and suiting someone else’s needs.

I do understand that: you were psychoanalysing yourself in a sense...

On a lot of long walks by rivers with a dog we’d just bought, where I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my work. I realised I was properly marooned and needed to do something about it. The Winterling was the first play I wrote out in Devon, where I was living. It’s pretty much a cross-section of what was going on with me at the time. I’d started to keep, slaughter and butcher animals. And that play is very much a visceral, animal-like experience. Really it’s about the question – it strikes me now – as to whether there is any mercy in the world. Of course there is: we’re the only ones that have it. But it’s a question of where it gets exercised in the course of that play. There’s an act of mercy at the end of that play, which is the first thing that happens in it that a bear wouldn’t be capable of doing.

You wrote it at top speed because of this gap that had opened up in the programme for the Royal Court’s fiftieth anniversary year?

I sat down to write one play and another one came out. I was left alone in the cottage that we lived in and it was the night that Harold Pinter did his Nobel Prize speech, called ‘Art, Truth and Politics’. And I watched it. I knew Harold – I’d directed him in the film of Mojo – but I hadn’t seen him for ages. And in the first part of that speech, he tells you how to write a play – in the first ten minutes: he just takes you through it. It was like being reminded how to write a play. You’ll remember Harold was extremely ill, too ill to go and collect the award: it was like he was going to die any day. So I decided to sit down and write using entirely his technique. And try to speak like him. The Winterling sounds a lot like Harold Pinter.

It really does.

Everybody said that – except Harold. I wish to God I’d dedicated the play to him, because then it would have been obvious what it was I was up to: it was really an exercise in homage and also a wish to try to get close to him.

Close to him as a person or...?

Close to him as a creative force. To try to stand in his shoes. I saw the play again the other day for the first time and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I expected to find that it was a stuffed bird, but it’s not at all. It flies. I don’t give a fuck how much it sounds like Harold; it’s not easy to sound like Harold. If you’re going to do any kind of apprenticeship – and I still consider myself in one – it’s a great experience to... Everybody does it: there’s a point where you sing in someone else’s voice before you sing in your own. There’s this thing that critics get up to here where it’s almost as if they’re trying to work out who you copied your homework off. Voice is the hardest thing to grasp. But the critics’ attitude to writers is: ‘Let’s stamp the shit out of them when they’re on a journey to finding their voice.’ Were I a different person, I could have been destroyed by the response to that play.

You said you were too busy to see the play more than once. That was because your film career was carrying on in tandem? But not so very long after that you seemed to be returning to the theatre more frequently. Did you deliberately wind down your film commitments?

I did, yes. Around 2007 I started to change my ideas about what I wanted to use the theatre for. It wasn’t just a mysterious process that you threw yourself at in a short space of time. I suddenly realised that it was of foremost importance to me that I’d always written for actors not audiences. I love the idea that an actor gets to spend a month – or two if you’re lucky – with your work, your words, and thinks about it in a way that an audience isn’t privileged to. It becomes a part of the actor’s life. And I realised the whole process is about evoking anxieties that we share, anxieties that you can bring to light and deal with in the theatre. It hit me like a bolt of lightning: that’s what it’s for; this is a church. If I get this right, and I try hard enough, and I’m brave enough about it, I’m going to be able to access something which is going to be of importance to the actors first of all, and then to the audience.

With Parlour Song and then Jerusalem appearing on stage here in the UK in the same year, it seemed that some floodgate had been opened. What happened? Did you write them in parallel? Is the one related to the other?

One takes place in a wood and the other takes place in a new estate that’s been built on the site of a wood. Ned in Parlour Song says: ‘There’s been a wood; it was here for a thousand years. Now it’s gone: we’re here.’ And then in Jerusalem there’s the idea that the wood is going to be erased and replaced by housing estates. And though they’re set in different parts of England, those two ideas speak to each other. Rooster Byron in Jerusalem and Ned in Parlour Song couldn’t be more opposite. One is utterly defiant, courageous and free-spirited, the other is occluded, scared, closed, neurotic and shutting everything out – throughout. Albeit they’re both in states of delusion and denial, they’re opposite ends of the scale.

So did they come together in your mind?

Not consciously, but then at this point very little is conscious in terms of what it is I’m trying to do. I’ve found a way of disengaging consciously altogether from the process and of following a path, almost like following a trail of breadcrumbs through a wood, of goosebump experiences. I’m just using it as a compass: if the next bit creates goosebumps in some way, I’ll go there and I don’t ask why.

Harold Pinter used to talk about writing down snatches of dialogue or even just images which then went nowhere. Do you have false starts, or are you able to follow your compass accurately?

Jerusalem was a false start in as much as I wrote a first draft in 2004 and wholly disliked the first stab. The play was obviously big in scope, and I simply was unable to corral its effects into any kind of satisfying whole. Whether this was because, on a basic level, I hadn’t composed for that many instruments before, or whether it was because I was afraid to really say what the play wanted to say, I will never know. But I returned to it in the spring of 2009, by which time, as I’ve described, my whole approach to my work had fundamentally changed. And it just came.

Apart from that, I don’t have many half-written things. If I sit down to do it, I’ll do it. I tend to end up with very few notes, usually a small amount that I will have lost along the way. It’s almost like a performance, I suppose, where you sit down and set yourself an unfeasible time limit, usually dictated by a deadline, so it’s got to happen. It’s that feel of an actor walking on stage. What a neurologist might call ‘performance arousal’ occurs, where your brain sets itself up along different lines under pressure.

In 2007 I became friends with Harold Pinter and had lots of lunches with him and conversations with him about writing. In the two years before he died I saw him a lot and went to visit him. The conversations that we would have made it clear to me what it was I wanted to do professionally for the rest of my life, if I can. The things that Harold was saying were so extraordinarily profound and so meaningful to me that there was to be no fear from now on. There was going to be no place for that at all. In July 2007 he said something to me that was absolutely the ignition and spur to my decision to dedicate myself to playwriting.

Can you put it into words?

I’m never going to tell anyone.

That was 2007.

After The Winterling, before Parlour Song and Jerusalem.

Did Parlour Song start with a specific image? Did you, for instance, turn into a particular housing estate and think, ‘God, how deadly’?

I grew up on a new-build estate. We moved in a good five years after the houses were built on green-belt land on the edge of the countryside. Birthday Girl [a film written and directed by Jez, starring Nicole Kidman, in 2001] deals with that as well: he’s got suburbs out the front and wilderness out the back. I knew that world. I knew it really clearly. It wasn’t something I needed to research. We grew up in a house where the house next door was a mirror image.

Both Parlour Song and Jerusalem came about from following the breadcrumbs and getting goose pimples?

Yes.

I have the impression that the pre-rehearsal draft of Jerusalem that I read was a good deal longer than what appeared on stage. Do you get it all down and then look at what you’ve got?

I was producing a film in New York at the time by day, Fair Game, and writing Jerusalem by night. There’s an idea that this play took eight years to write, but actually it took about nine weeks over eight years: three weeks, four weeks and two weeks. The last bit was in New York, literally moonlighting, trying to get it finished at the very last minute. So we went into rehearsal with it not completed, which is, by the way, my dream state to enter any rehearsal. Ian was wonderful about it, even though I know he’d much rather have his annotated script before he goes into rehearsal.

So would the Royal Court, presumably.

They were brilliant about it too. We were a week into rehearsal, and Ian and I were saying, ‘We need another actor.’ And they were fine. ‘And it’s going to be three hours and fifteen minutes long.’ And the Royal Court were absolutely fine. Dominic [Cooke, artistic director] is a big, big reason why this play ended up being what it is.

Tell me, finally, about the two short plays in this volume.

I’ve had a fifteen-year affair going on with the Atlantic Theater in New York. I did Mojo there in 1997, which was after Ian directed it at Steppenwolf. I met Neil Pepe, who’s been the Atlantic’s artistic director for a good twenty years, and we just hit it off. They’ve put on three of my plays and two shorts. And again, they will call up and say, ‘We’ve got the twentieth anniversary coming up, can you write a one-act?’ So I’ll bang something out. Those sort of call-to-arms have always sparked me off. Parlour Song, for instance, started at the Atlantic, because they had a slot. The two one-acts were both essentially occasional pieces for different events.

There was no theme suggested to you?

None whatsoever, no. The last one, The Naked Eye, came about because I’d met Zosia Mamet, who’s David Mamet’s daughter and a wonderful actor, and I wanted to write something specifically for her. That was as far as it went in terms of a theme.

And Leavings, the one about the dog, obviously has links to The Winterling.

The Winterling was written incredibly quickly. I literally put that down and started writing Leavings. And oddly enough it starts exactly the same way. My neighbour had come round in floods of tears: her husband had left a brace of duck which he’d forgotten about on the seat of their Land Rover. She’d opened the door and they’d leapt out: one of them was dead and the other wasn’t. They were a mating pair, so one was tied to the dead partner. And it just struck me... Anyone who’s struggling with any kind of grief with the death of someone... So a lot of that was just the putting together of things that had happened to me immediately that week. It was an odd state to be in – very creative.

It was as though you had that handful of breadcrumbs.

Two handfuls.

Before we finish, is there anything else you want to say about this period that you feel should go on record?

The most important thing in my career so far, without a shadow of a doubt, has been Ian Rickson. His sense of what it is I’m trying to do has never faltered. To watch him in rehearsal... He’ll go in with one set of ideas – he’s running the Royal Court and coping with the politics – then, twenty minutes into rehearsal, he’s changed completely, he’s become a different creature: I don’t think he knows it. He’s become this intuitive blob that can put stuff together the way it should be put together. He directs not like a conductor but like a composer: this goes here, that goes there, so beautifully put-together. He’s fearless in what he does and doesn’t want to have in it. It’s been a terrific working relationship. It’s had fits and starts, and we often go off in a huff with each other. But I love working with him, and if I could spend my entire life fruitfully collaborating with Ian, it would be wonderful.

MOJO

Mojo was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs in Sloane Square, London, on 14 July 1995, with the following cast:

SILVER JOHNNY

Hans Matheson

SWEETS

Matt Bardock

POTTS

Andy Serkis

BABY

Tom Hollander

SKINNY

Aidan Gillen

MICKEY

David Westhead

Director

Ian Rickson

Designer

Ultz

Lighting Designers

Ultz and Mark Ridler

Sound Designer

Paul Arditti

Composer

Stephen Warbeck

The production transferred to the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs in St Martin’s Lane, London, on 10 October 1996, with the following cast:

SILVER JOHNNY

Daniel Newman

SWEETS

Callum Dixon

POTTS

Neil Stuke

BABY

Paul Reynolds

SKINNY

Darren Tighe

MICKEY

Simon Kunz

Characters

in order of appearance

SILVER JOHNNY, seventeen

SWEETS, early twenties

POTTS, early twenties

BABY, twenties

SKINNY, early twenties

MICKEY, thirties

Act One takes place upstairs at Ezra’s Atlantic in Dean Street, Soho, July 1958.

Act Two takes place downstairs in the club and starts around 6 p.m. on the same day.

ACT ONE

Scene One

Upstairs at the Atlantic. SILVER JOHNNY stands alone. We hear the drums, the thudding bass, the screams from the club below. SILVER JOHNNY does steps by himself, tight, menacing, explosive, like a boxer in the seconds before a fight. A low distorted voice announces the act, the girls scream, but he keeps them waiting. The music rises, faster, louder. It reaches its height, SILVER JOHNNY stands at the top of the steel staircase. When the moment comes, he vaults into the stairwell and vanishes, enveloped by sound.

The drums pound on in the blackout. Suddenly they stop and the next second we are back upstairs at the Atlantic, after the show. SWEETS and POTTS are sitting at a table. There is a pot of tea on the table with three pretty cups, on a tray. The door to the back room is shut.

SWEETS. Is that brewed?

POTTS. Four minutes.

SWEETS. You want a pill?

POTTS. My piss is black.

SWEETS. It’s the white ones. Don’t eat no more of the white ones. (Pause.) So where is he sitting?

POTTS. Who?

SWEETS. Mr Ross.

POTTS. He’s on the couch.

SWEETS. Right.

POTTS. Mr Ross is on the couch.

SWEETS. Good. How is he?

POTTS. What?

SWEETS. Good mood, bad mood, quiet, jolly, upfront, offhand. Paint me a picture.

POTTS. Tan suit. No tie. Penny loafers. No tassle.

SWEETS. Uh-huh. Right. Does he look flush?

POTTS. He’s Mr Ross.

SWEETS. Absolutely.

POTTS. He’s a flush man.

SWEETS. Naturally.

POTTS. Ten-guinea Baltimore loafers. Suit sweat a year for you couldn’t buy. Shirt undone. Tanned like a darkie. Yes he looks flush.

SWEETS. Ten-guinea Baltimores? Fuck me briefly.

POTTS. Penny. No tassle.

SWEETS. They’re talking about it aren’t they... (Pause.) Okay. Okay. So where’s Ezra?

POTTS. Ezra’s at the desk, but he’s not in his chair. He’s round here to one side.

SWEETS. The Mr Ross side or the miles-away side?

POTTS. Round here to the side on the poochy stool.

SWEETS. Poochy stool. Good.

POTTS. Sit behind the desk it’s like I’m the man. Like I’m trying to big you out. Sit round the side on the poochy stool, Hey Presto, we’re all a circle.

SWEETS. Okay. Okay. So where’s the kid?

POTTS. Couch.

SWEETS. Couch. Good.

POTTS. On the couch with Mr Ross.

SWEETS. Exactly. Let him see the merchandise.

They sit there, waiting for the tea to brew.

You know Beryl? She goes to me tonight, she goes, ‘When Silver Johnny sings the song my pussyhair stands up.’

POTTS. Relax.

SWEETS. I know. I know. Her pussyhair.

POTTS. We just sit here.

SWEETS. I know. Her fucking minge. Her fur. It stands up.

POTTS. I see these girls. It’s voodoo. Shaking it like they hate it. Like they hate themselves for it.

SWEETS. In the alley. ‘Get it out,’ she says. ‘Get it out I’ll play a tune on it...’

POTTS. One day he’s asking his mum can he cross the road the next he’s got grown women queueing up to suck his winkle.

SWEETS. Seventeen. Child.

POTTS. These girls. They shit when he sings.

SWEETS. Exactly. (Beat.) What?

POTTS. Mickey knows. They shit. He seen it.

SWEETS. They what?

POTTS. It’s a sex act. It’s sexual.

SWEETS. Hold it. Hold it. Stop. Wait. (Beat.) They shit?

POTTS. All over.

Beat.

SWEETS. What does that mean?

POTTS. Means they have no control in front of a shiny-suited child. Sad fucking world. The end. I’m going to use this as a rule for life: ‘Anything makes polite young ladies come their cocoa in public is worth taking a look at.’

SWEETS. Good rule.

POTTS. Great rule.

SWEETS. There’s got to be rules and that’s a rule.

POTTS. What time is it? Okay. Good. Sweets. Listen. (Beat.) When he announces it –

SWEETS. Hey –

POTTS. When Ezra –

SWEETS. Hey. Hey –

POTTS. If he takes you aside... (I know. I know. But listen) –

SWEETS. Could be me could be you. Could be me could be you.

POTTS. Exactly. I’m planning. I’m... listen. He takes you aside tells you takes me aside, it’s not important. For me there’s no difference.

SWEETS. It’s exactly the same thing. Me or you. Exactly.

POTTS. Exactly. Good. The important thing is whichever way it comes, when he announces it, when it happens, act ‘Surprised and Happy’.

SWEETS. Surprised and Good. Good.

POTTS. Happy and Good. Good. The end. That’s four minutes. (Stands and picks up the tea tray.) What?

SWEETS. Absolutely. What? Nothing.

POTTS. I’ll be straight back.

SWEETS. Right. Good luck.

POTTS. Relax.

SWEETS. I am relaxed. I’m talking.

POTTS takes the tea into the back room. He closes the door. SWEETS lights a cigarette. POTTS returns.

So?

POTTS. So what?

SWEETS. So what happened?

POTTS. Nothing.

SWEETS. Right.

POTTS. They’re drinking the tea.

SWEETS. Right. Good. What about the Campari? Has the kid drunk his Campari?

POTTS. He’s sipping it.

SWEETS. Good.

POTTS. It’s casual.

SWEETS. Good sign.

POTTS. You know? Loose.

SWEETS. Excellent. Excellent sign.

POTTS. Ezra’s still on the poochy stool. But he’s moved it. He’s tugged it over in snug next to Sam.

SWEETS. Hold it. Hold it. Stop. Who?

POTTS. What?

SWEETS. You said Sam.

POTTS. Indeed.

SWEETS. Who’s Sam?

POTTS. Mr Ross.

SWEETS. Oh.

POTTS. Sam is Mr Ross.

SWEETS. Oh right.

POTTS. Sam Ross. That’s his name.

SWEETS. Since when?

POTTS. Everyone calls him Sam. His mum named him Sam.

SWEETS. Lah-di-dah.

POTTS. Listen. Sam Ross is here next to Ezra he’s got his legs crossed and he’s letting his loafer hang off his foot like this. It’s bobbing there.

SWEETS. Don’t.

POTTS. Right next to Ezra’s leg.

SWEETS. Stop.

POTTS. Eyes wide like this. Both of ’em. Like long-lost puppies.

SWEETS. Fuck me. They’re talking about it aren’t they.

POTTS. And remember: Sam Ross came to us.

SWEETS. He did. (Beat.) What’s the kid doing?

POTTS. Nothing. Sitting in between looking pretty.

SWEETS. Good.

POTTS. He ain’t saying nothing. Just sitting there looking foxy.

SWEETS. Good. The kid’s doing good.

POTTS. He knows why he’s there. He’s paid to warble and look pretty. He ain’t paid to give it large in the back room.

SWEETS. Has he got the jacket on?

POTTS. Who?

SWEETS. The kid. Has he got the Silver Jacket on?

POTTS. He’s took it off. It’s on the table.

SWEETS. Hang on. Hang on. He’s took it off?

POTTS. It’s on the table.

SWEETS. Hang on. Hang on. What the fuck is he doing?

POTTS. What?

SWEETS. What the fuck is going on?

POTTS. What’s up?

SWEETS. He’s supposed to wear the Silver Jacket. He’s Silver Johnny. Silver Johnny, Silver Jacket.

POTTS. Sweets –

SWEETS. Silver Johnny, Silver Suit. That’s the whole point.

POTTS. I know.

SWEETS. Ezra buys the Silver Jacket he should wear it.

POTTS. It’s hot in there.

SWEETS. I don’t give a fuck if it’s hot. Mr Ross deserves the full benefit. He’s not called Shirtsleeves Johnny is he. He was called Shirtsleeves Johnny it would be perfect.

POTTS. It’s laid-back. It’s a jackets-off atmosphere. He’s right to take the jacket off. It’s good.

SWEETS. I’m not happy. (Pause.) Has he got the trousers on?

POTTS. What?

SWEETS. Has he got the silver trousers on?

POTTS. Of course he fucking has.

SWEETS. Well that’s something.

POTTS. Fuck do you think they’re doing in there? He’s gonna sit there in just his pants?

SWEETS. I know. I’m just excited.

POTTS. He’s got his trousers on.

SWEETS. I know. Relax.

POTTS. You relax.

SWEETS. I am relaxed. I’m talking.

POTTS. Exactly. (Pause.) Ezra done this. (Winks.)

SWEETS. At you?

POTTS. Ezra don’t forget. I mean who fucking discovered the kid? I did.

SWEETS. Right.

POTTS. Fact. One solid-gold forgotten fact. Ask Mickey. Up Camden. Luigi’s.

SWEETS. Luigi who fucks dogs.

POTTS. Yes. No. Luigi with the daughter. Parkway. With the Italian flag up behind the. The thing behind the.

SWEETS. With the daughter. Does the liver and onions.

POTTS. That’s him. I’m up doing all the Camden jukes. Three weeks running Luigi’s light on his pennies. Every machine in Parkway is pulling in eight nine quid a week, Luigi’s it’s one bag, two, three quid if you’re lucky. So I say stop having a chuckle, inky pinky blah blah blah you’re gonna get a kidney punched out.

SWEETS. Only fucking language they speak.

POTTS. So he’s gone, listen, he’s gone, ‘No one’s playing the juke.’

SWEETS. Yeah right.

POTTS. He says. Nobody’s playing it.

SWEETS. Like we’re in Outer Russia.

POTTS. Like it’s the Moon. Outer Russia. Exactly. He says they’re doing it themself. He says they’ve got a kid comes in here, gets up in the corner, does it himself. The fucking shake rattle roll himself. I mean. Camden kids?

SWEETS. Micks.

POTTS. Do me a favour.

SWEETS. Micks and Paddies.

POTTS. Do me a good clean turn.

SWEETS. Micks and Paddies and wops who fuck dogs.

POTTS. He says, ‘Come back tonight, you’ll see.’ So I come back tonight. And I take Ezra, Mickey we’re gonna scalp him take the rig back he’s told us a fib. (Pause.) Lo and behold.

SWEETS. No.

POTTS. In the corner, all the moves. Doing ‘Sixty Minute Man’. Everyone watching. In the corner. A child. (Pause.) That’s what happened. I’m not whining. I’m not bleating. You know, am I supposed to get back in the van start doing sums? ‘I want X-Y-Z. Twenty, thirty, forty per cent.’

SWEETS. You’re not some fuckin’ vulture.

POTTS. I’m not some fucking doorboy. I want what’s due. I want what’s fucking mine.

Beat.

Enter BABY. He stands there for a bit.

BABY. Drinking wine spo-deeodee,

Drinking wine spo-deeodee,

Drinking wine spo-deeodee,

Dancing on a Saturday night.

POTTS. Oh watcha Baby...

SWEETS. Watcha Babes. How you getting on?

POTTS. How’s it going down there? Anyone left?

BABY. Hello Sweets. What a night eh?

SWEETS. Yeah...

POTTS. How you feeling Babes?

BABY. Well Sid, actually I feel great.

POTTS. Yeah? You look awful.

SWEETS. Go and put your feet up. You look like a corpse.

BABY. Yeah. Well let’s play then. Bring a crate up, relax, few disks... Let’s get it started.

POTTS. Yeah. Actually. We’ll get it started later...

BABY. Oh. What’s up?

POTTS. Nothing.

SWEETS. Nothing at all. No. (Pause.) It’s just they’re having a bit of a meeting.

POTTS. No they’re not.

SWEETS. Exactly.

BABY. What’s going on then?

POTTS. Nothing. They’re just relaxing.

BABY. What? In there?

POTTS. Something like that. It’s nothing. Best keep the noise down.

BABY. Say no more Sidney. (Laughs.) Ssshhh!

SWEETS. Exactly. Sssh.

BABY. Look at that. We forgot the cake.

SWEETS. Yeah. That was my fault. I was supposed to take it down at the last song, pass it around. Completely forgot.

BABY. Look at that cake. That is a brilliant cake. You better hide it Sweets. Or you’ll be in hot water.

SWEETS. Yeah I will. I’m gonna hide it.

BABY. Well. All right. I’m gonna go downstairs now.

POTTS. Brilliant.

BABY. Have a spruce-up drink.

POTTS. Good idea.

BABY. Just to spruce me up a bit. You want to join me?

POTTS. Yeah. We’ll be right down.

BABY. Sweets?

SWEETS. Yeah. I’m gonna be straight down.

BABY. All right. I’m going down now.

POTTS. Okay. See you in a bit mate. Play a game later.

BABY. Drinking wine spo-dee-o-dee. My piss is black.

SWEETS. It’s the white ones. Don’t eat no more of the white ones.

BABY. The white ones. (Laughs.) Spo-dee-o-dee. Sssshh!

Exit BABY.

SWEETS. Do you think he knows?

POTTS. What do you think?

SWEETS. Ezra wouldn’t tell him.

POTTS. He couldn’t find the gents’ in this place without asking.

SWEETS. Ezra wouldn’t tell him. Ezra wouldn’t trust him.

POTTS. Ezra wouldn’t trust him to run a tub. He doesn’t know.

SWEETS. If you don’t know you don’t know.

POTTS. Good. Good. The end. Sweets. I heard ‘fifty-fifty’.

Pause.

SWEETS. Okay. Say that again.

POTTS. I don’t know.

SWEETS. Okay. Just that little last bit again.

POTTS. I don’t know.

SWEETS. You heard fifty-fifty. You said you heard fifty-fifty.

POTTS. I don’t know. Don’t turn it into nothing. Don’t knit a blanket out of it.

SWEETS. Okay. Stop. Sid. Think. Was it Sam? Did Sam say it?

POTTS. Tricky. With the smoke, I’m pouring tea bent double I heard those words. That word. ‘Fifty.’ Twice. Fifty. Fifty. Five-O. And the single word ‘America’.

They look at each other.

SWEETS. Okay. Okay. Okay. All we know –

POTTS. All we know is ‘Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high’.

SWEETS. Fish are jumping. Precisely.

POTTS. Good. The end. Talk about something else.

SWEETS. Exactly. Good. Great night.

POTTS. Great night. Exactly. We’re fucking made.

SWEETS. My life makes sense.

POTTS. Go upstairs see if there’s an angel pissing down the chimney.

SWEETS. My whole fucking life makes sense. (Pause.) Hold it. Hold it. We’ve not been told.

POTTS. Makes no difference.

SWEETS. Have you been told?

POTTS. Have you been told?

SWEETS. No.

POTTS. Makes no difference. Go to the museum.

SWEETS. Right. What?

POTTS. Go down take a look at any picture Napoleon. Go take a butcher’s at the Emperor Half the World. And you’ll see it. You’ll see. They got a lot of blokes standing around. Doers. Finders. Advisors. Acquaintances. Watchers. An entourage.

SWEETS. Big fuckers in fur boots. On the payroll.

POTTS. Napoleon’s chums. And they’re all there. Sticking around. Having a natter. Cleaning rifles. Chatting to cherubs. Waiting. Waiting for the deal to come off.

SWEETS. They weren’t there they wouldn’t have fuckin’ painted them.

POTTS. Just ’cos now he’s got a big horse don’t mean he don’t need chums. He’s got big, they’ve put him on the big pony, his mates go – ‘Maybe Napoleon don’t want us around no more. Cramping him up. Holding him back.’ ’Cos one thing Sweets. They’ve put you in sealskin boots told you you’re Emperor, that’s when you need mates. ’Cos one day they’re gonna lift you back out, stand you in the snow watch your fucking toes drop off.

SWEETS. Listen. Okay. All we know –

POTTS. All we know is ‘Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high’.

SWEETS. ‘Fish are jumping.’ Exactly.

POTTS. ‘It’s a Nice Day’ and ‘Oh look the fish are jumping, and will you look how high that cotton’s got.’ Good. Good. The end. They’re going back to his.

SWEETS. Tonight?

POTTS. Billiards. They’re going to Sam’s house for billiards.

SWEETS. Clover.

POTTS. Knee-deep. Thrashing around in it. God spoke to me last night Sweets.

SWEETS. Doesn’t surprise me an ounce.

POTTS. God, said to me, ‘Do not be troubled Sidney for your ship is coming in. Yours is the racy big cock-shaped one over there going faster than the rest so just keep your mouth shut and wait.’

SWEETS. Doesn’t surprise me an ounce.

POTTS. He’s gone ‘Keep your mouth shut, unless your nose is in the trough, then open your mouth, and chew like fuck. That’s all there is chum.’

SWEETS. You know what God said to me last night? He goes, ‘Sweets, There’s no God, do what you will, good luck, end of message.’

POTTS. The way I see it it goes like this: Fuck God.

SWEETS. Precisely. Fuck him on a cloud.

POTTS. Fuck God if you know the king. Do you know what I mean? Fuck God if you only know someone knows someone knows the king. Because if you know someone knows someone knows the king, and you wait long enough sooner or later you’re gonna get a sweet taste of the king’s cock.

SWEETS. Good rule.

POTTS. Great rule.

SWEETS. There’s got to be rules and that’s a rule.

POTTS. He’s got dyed hair.

SWEETS. Who?

POTTS. Sam Ross has got dyed hair.

SWEETS. You’re kidding.

POTTS. He’s took his hat off wham! Bright-yellow dyed hair. Not blond or nothing. Yellow. Like a banana.

SWEETS. I never thought I’d know that. I never thought I’d know that detail.

POTTS. Sweets. Sweets. The shoes. The motherfucking shoes on the man.

SWEETS. Buckskin. Hand-stitched.

POTTS. Baby buckskin. Baby fucking hand-stitched buckskin.

SWEETS. Baby fuckin’ buckskin hand-stitched by elves.

POTTS. Baby fucking buckskin.

SWEETS. Baby what? Who knows? (Laughs.) Eh? Who fucking knows?

POTTS. Something rare. Something rare and soft. Something young, can hardly walk, kill it, turn it inside out –

SWEETS. Unborn pony.

POTTS. That’s the one. Still attached. Still in the –

SWEETS. Still in its mother’s womb.

POTTS. Asleep in the fucking exactly. Wake it up, rip it out, lah-di-dah, pair of shoes. Bom. It’s over. I’m going out.

SWEETS. You don’t like it? Who cares? I’m fucking paying.

Feet on the steps.

POTTS. Don’t say nothing. Fish are jumping.

SWEETS. The cotton is high.

Enter SKINNY with a broom. He is seething, furious.

SKINNY (shouts). You cheap fucking sweaty fucking... fucking... Jew... fucking... (Pause. Lights a cigarette.)

SWEETS. All right Skinny? What’s up?

SKINNY. Nothing. (Pause.) I’m leaving. I’ve had enough. I’m telling Ezra. I’m going to get a proper job. I’m going to work in a bank.

SWEETS. Oh yeah? Something gone wrong.

SKINNY. You know the one in the dress with the thing up the back? We’re having a chat, she’s up for it, and Baby swans up, stands in here, close, and he does the thing with the... Says the thing about bad breath. The thing about that I’ve got bad breath. About my breath being bad. I get fifteen minutes free time, yeah, enjoy the night before the coats start leaving and he gives it the breath.

Pause.

I’m tickets at the door seven Saturdays in a row. Seven straight. ‘Skinny, you’re on the door.’ ‘Skinny you’re on coats.’ The juke’s fucked, who finds a spanner greases up his new shirt? ‘Skinny chum, mop this pile of sick up for two and six an hour.’ Yeah? Meanwhile, right, what’s he doing? What’s he doing? Oh look, he’s at the bar. Oh look, he’s leaning on the fucking bar. Is that Alan Ladd? No. I don’t think so.

POTTS. Come here.

He does.

Breathe.

He does.

Skinny, your breath smells beautiful.

SKINNY. Thank you.

POTTS. It smells like English roses.

SKINNY. What? Thank you. Thank you.

POTTS. It’s a pleasure.

SKINNY. Start of the night about five people in here, he comes up behind me on the door squeezes my bollocks. Not playful. Really gripping. And you know when you’re not crying but water comes to your eyes. (Pause.) Fucking night. What you doing up here?

POTTS. Nothing.

SKINNY. Fucking weekend. Where’s Ezra?

SWEETS. He ain’t here. He’s gone home.

SKINNY. It’s all right, you just sit up here have a natter.

SWEETS. They all cleared off?

SKINNY. That darkie’s still down there dancing on his own.

POTTS. Chuck him out.

SKINNY. You playing a game later?

SWEETS. Dunno.

POTTS. We’ll see.

SKINNY. Is Baby playing? Because I’m not playing if Baby’s playing.

SWEETS. Skin. Pop up the Half-Wops, get us all a frothy coffee, come back, then we’ll all play.

SKINNY. Okay. I’ll go and get a coffee. I’ve had enough of all this. I’m going to get hurt. I might want to have children one day.

Pause.

POTTS. Go up the Half-Wops, come back, we’ll play.

SKINNY. Fucking weekend. My piss is black.

SWEETS. It’s the white ones. Don’t eat no more of the white ones.

Blackout. Drumming.

Scene Two

Upstairs at the Atlantic. SKINNY is tied with his hands around the back of a jukebox, his pants round his ankles. BABY, naked from the waist up, wild, is wielding an old navy cutlass and screaming at SKINNY that he is going to die. The others are all appealing to BABY to stop, but BABY swings the cutlass around, pointing it at each of them in turn. SWEETS gets up on the desk, still shouting as BABY pushes the point against SKINNY’s cheek. Enter MICKEY.

SWEETS is the first to spot MICKEY in the doorway. He calls to BABY over and over, and after the music ends it is a full ten seconds before the din subsides and SWEETS is just calling ‘Baby’ over and over, his eyes shut. Having won BABY’s attention, SWEETS indicates to the door.

BABY. Oh. Hi Mickey.

SKINNY. Mickey. Christ. Thank Christ.

BABY puts the cutlass down. MICKEY walks to the blinds and opens them. Bright sunlight pours into the smoke-filled room. MICKEY opens the window. Sounds from the street.

POTTS. Gonna be another corker Mickey. Look at all that sunshine.

SWEETS. Mickey mate. How hard is this eh? I try to tell him. I be like a dad.

MICKEY just stands there.

POTTS. How’s your head cold Mickey?

SWEETS. Mickey, how’s your head chum? You feeling better chum? Bit more like it eh?

MICKEY. Everybody having a good time?

POTTS. Looks bad doesn’t it?

SWEETS. Looks dreadful. Tell me how bad it looks. Tell me.

POTTS. Last night Mickey! You should have been there.

SWEETS. You missed a night. Like everyone’s birthday at once. Place looks like a palace.

POTTS. One word. Sequins.

SWEETS. I’m going to say one word now and it’s just been said... The fucking sequins.

POTTS. Sequin after sequin after sequin. Sequins on the walls. Sequins on the ceiling. Sequins round the bar.

SWEETS. Looks like Little Richard walked in and exploded.

POTTS. I was saying only just now, wasn’t I Sweets. Underwater theme. ‘Ezra’s Atlantic’. See, we noticed. The whole joint sparkles like the Briny Deep. Like Neptune’s cove.

SKINNY. Hold it. Hold It. I say ‘Fuck the Decor’. I say back to the issue of Me Being Tortured.

SWEETS. Look, this sprung from, you know, from circumstances. Game of cards. Few drinks. Few laughs. Few pills.

POTTS. Great pills. Sweet’s pills.

SWEETS. M’mum’s pills. Slimming pills.

POTTS. You have to wolf hundreds but in the end...

SWEETS. So. Few drinks. Few laughs. Few pills...

POTTS. Then lots of pills.

SWEETS. Our big mistake.

POTTS. Giant Mistake. Turned sour see. Big up then a big dipper down. What’s the word? Emotional.

SWEETS. Emotional. That’s Mum. Thin as piss but so emotional.

POTTS. You’re up then ‘bing’ – (what’s the word?) ‘Jivey.’

SWEETS. ‘Antsy.’ Antsy in the pantsy.

POTTS. Puts the big gorilla monkey on your back. So. Few pills. Pale Ale. Big hand, it’s all tense, Skin here whips the King of Spades out his sock.

SWEETS. Clean out his loafer.

SKINNY. I swear. It fell on the floor.

POTTS. I miss it, Sweets missed it, Baby sees it, he’s got Queens-over-eights. Nine fucking guineas lying panting on the table.

SWEETS. And the rest is history.

POTTS. Exactly. The rest mostly speaks for itself. So.

SWEETS. So. That’s what happened. That’s what happened up until now.

POTTS. Hold it. Hold it. (Beat.) My heart’s stopped.

SWEETS. Breathe.

POTTS. I can’t breathe. My heart’s stopped.

SWEETS. Are you sweating?

POTTS. I got no pulse.

SWEETS. Take a white one.

POTTS. I already had a white one.

SWEETS. Have your feet gone dead?

POTTS. Check.

SWEETS. Prickly face?

POTTS. Check.

SWEETS. Pits pouring sweat?

POTTS. Check.

SWEETS. Take a white one.

POTTS. You said –

SWEETS. It’s up to you. Take a white one or die.

POTTS. What about black piss?

SWEETS. You want to be dead or you want black piss?

POTTS takes one.

Put your arms above your head and pant like a dog.

POTTS holds his arms above his head. He pants. Pause.

SKINNY. Mickey. What we were talking about in the van.

POTTS. Bingo. I’m back.

SWEETS. Welcome home. You should get a rush.

POTTS. I’m getting a rush.

SWEETS. Euphoria. Your body’s glad it’s not dead.

POTTS. She’s going like a choo-choo...

SWEETS. You’re glad to be alive.

POTTS. Great to be me. Great to be me. This is a fucking great time to be me. I’m all right.

SWEETS. Great night. Great night.

POTTS. I’m better than all right. I’m fantastic. Great night. Great night. Hey Mickey. Mickey. Guess what? I saw this bloke sick up in his bird’s mouth.

SWEETS. I saw that.

SKINNY. Mickey. Enough. Remember what we spoke about in the van. And this isn’t for me. It’s for you. Fuck me. For you.

BABY. This is advice you’re about to get Mickey.

SKINNY. Advice? Are you Italian now? No. You’re not. You’re a Jew. Be one.

BABY. He’s pulling them out his shoes, I’ll just lie down and take it eh?

SKINNY. It fell on the ground. It falls on the ground you pick it up.

POTTS. Baby. I think you have something to say to Mickey.

SWEETS. Yeah, c’mon Babes and we can all get on with our fuckin’ lives.

Pause.

BABY. Uh, Skinny. (Laughs.) What are you staring at?

POTTS. Charming. Charming. Baby –

SKINNY. Fuck off.

BABY. What, are you giving me the eye? Are you giving me the evil eye?

SKINNY. You nothing fucking piece of dog’s plop.

SWEETS. Baby –

BABY. Because (excuse me Mickey). Because if you’re giving me the evil eye you’re doing it wrong.

SKINNY. I fuck your mother and she shouts your name.

BABY. Because you look like you love me. You look like you want to put your cock in my ear. Look away. Look away.

SKINNY. Fuck off. I’m not playing.