Lawrence After Arabia E-Book

Howard Brenton

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

Seitenzahl: 88

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Howard Brenton's Lawrence After Arabia explores the afterlife of a legend, when being a hero has become a burden, and the man once celebrated as Lawrence of Arabia wants only to be normal once more. August, 1922. The most famous man in England has vanished without a trace: T.E. Lawrence has completely disappeared. But in the idyllic calm of the village of Ayot St Lawrence, on the top floor of the home of Mr and Mrs Bernard Shaw, the 'uncrowned King of Arabia' is hiding – with slabs of homemade carrot cake for comfort. Wearied by his romanticised persona and worldwide fame, disgusted with his country and himself, Lawrence is craving normality. But when you're a brilliant archaeologist, scholar, linguist, writer and diplomat – as well as a legendary desert warrior – how can you ever be normal? And beyond the Shaws' garden wall, nobody cares how he feels: England just wants its hero back. Can he ever return? Howard Brenton's Lawrence After Arabia, commissioned to mark the centenary of the start of the Arab revolt, finds Lawrence trapped in his love/hate relationship with the limelight, tormented by ghosts and haunted by broken promises. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2016, directed by John Dove.

Leseprobe

Howard Brenton

LAWRENCEAFTER ARABIA

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Characters

Lawrence After Arabia

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Lawrence After Arabia was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, on 28 April 2016, with the following cast:

LOWELL THOMAS

Sam Alexander

FIELD MARSHAL EDMUND ALLENBY

William Chubb

CHARLOTTE SHAW

Geraldine James

PRINCE FEISAL

Khalid Laith

T.E. LAWRENCE

Jack Laskey

BLANCHE PATCH

Rosalind March

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Jeff Rawle

Director

John Dove

Designer

Michael Taylor

Lighting

Mark Doubleday

Sound

John Leonard

Composer

Philip Pinsky

Casting

Crowley Poole

Characters

BLANCHE PATCH, forty-three years

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, sixty-six years

CHARLOTTE PAYNE-TOWNSHEND SHAW, sixty-three years

LOWELL THOMAS, thirty years

T.E. LAWRENCE, ‘Tom’ to his friends, thirty-four years

PRINCE FEISAL, thirty-eight years

FIELD MARSHAL EDMUND ALLENBY, fifty-four years

Setting

The action takes place at Shaw’s Corner, the home of George Bernard and Charlotte Shaw, in the Hertfordshire village of Ayot St Lawrence, in August 1922 and February 1923, and in the head of T.E. Lawrence.

Author’s Note

T.E. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw are ‘Tom’ and ‘GBS’ in speech prefixes, but ‘Lawrence’ and ‘Shaw’ in stage directions. I wanted to use the personal names of the principal characters when they are speaking, but in the stage directions I don’t want readers to lose sight of their fame.

H.B.

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

ACT ONE

Scene One

August 1922. CHARLOTTE’s sitting room at Shaw’s Corner, Ayot St Lawrence. The windows are opened out onto an expansive lawn, trees and bushes and fields beyond.

BLANCHE PATCH sits on a sofa, pen in hand, paper on a board on her lap. She is still.

Nothing happens.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW – GBS – enters at speed. He stops. He raises a hand dramatically to say something. He freezes.

After a lengthy pause he turns and exits at speed.

PATCH sighs then is still.

CHARLOTTE PAYNE-TOWNSHEND SHAW, married to SHAW, enters at speed.

CHARLOTTE. Has he…?

PATCH shakes her head.

CHARLOTTE sighs and exits.

Nothing happens.

SHAW enters.

GBS. Where were we?

PATCH. ‘The records of the Holy Inquisition…’

GBS. Ah. Yes. Very fine.

He stares. He raises an arm as if to speak rhetorically.He freezes. Then he turns and exits at speed.

And immediately re-enters, raises his arm and declaims.

PATCH is writing at speed – shorthand.

The records of the Holy Inquisition are full of histories we dare not give to the world, because they are beyond the belief of honest men and innocent women; yet they all began with saintly simpletons.

He pauses then lowers his arm.

Saintly simpletons. I like to think I am not one of them. I do play the fool from time to time, to annoy people. After all, I am a playwright.

He laughs. PATCH has written the last comment down.

No, Patch, that is not in the speech.

PATCH. But you spoke it.

GBS. The Grand Inquisitor is not a playwright.

PATCH. For all I know you may have decided to make him one.

GBS. Why, on this sweet and good earth, would I do that?

PATCH. There have been greater nonsenses in your plays than playwrighting Grand Inquisitors.

GBS. ‘Nonsenses’? Patch, after all your years as my secretary, are you turning critic?

PATCH. I am not being critical. I am being objective.

GBS. That’s what the scoundrels always say.

PATCH. You were a critic for many years.

GBS. Only because I needed the money. Where were we?

PATCH. Saintly simpletons.

GBS. Yes.

He pauses and raises his arm. He is about to declaim but CHARLOTTE enters at speed.

CHARLOTTE. He is American.

GBS. Who is?

CHARLOTTE. You know who. And he’s been sitting in the hall for an hour. Americans hate waiting.

GBS. Advise him to shrug off his national characteristics and prepare for bitter disappointment. I speak as an Irishman.

CHARLOTTE. Don’t be so knobbly. You agreed to see him.

GBS. Patch, please buy me a railway ticket.

PATCH. To where?

GBS. Crewe Station. It has an excellent tea room. I have written some of my best work in railway tea rooms, they are temples of perfect peace. Oh, very well, let us graciously grant audience to our American cousin.

CHARLOTTE, leaving.

Knobbly?

She turns.

CHARLOTTE. Very much.

GBS. As what?

CHARLOTTE. Your old walking stick?

GBS. I was thinking more: knobbly as a great oak in the forest?

CHARLOTTE (shaking her head). Old walking stick.

CHARLOTTE exits, smiling.

PATCH. Do you want me to type up the speech?

GBS. No no, it’s not done yet. I fear the Grand Inquisitor has much more to say.

PATCH. I will bicycle to Harpenden and purchase your railway ticket.

GBS. I was joking.

PATCH. You know I can never tell what is a joke with you and what is not.

She is going.

GBS. Patch, do you know why you are so invaluable to me?

PATCH. My skill at using your system of shorthand dictation?

GBS. You refuse to be my audience.

PATCH. I’m just not artistic.

She exits.

SHAW alone. He paces. He stops.

GBS. Heresy. Yes. Must get the speech onto heresy.

Rhetorical stance, arm raised.

‘Heresy at first seems innocent and even laudable; but it ends in such a monstrous horror of unnatural wickedness that the most tender-hearted amongst you, if you saw it at work…’ Or something like. The Grand Inquisitor as a playwright? (Laughs.) Twisting the plot upside down? Making the Church not the tyrannical, torturing organisation it was, but… merciful? Tip the world over, see what falls out…

CHARLOTTE (off). If you would like to come into my sitting room?

THOMAS (off). Your house is charming, Mrs Shaw.

CHARLOTTE (off). Why thank you, Mr Thomas.

GBS. Public Man! Go!

CHARLOTTE and LOWELL THOMAS, American, enter.

My dear Mr Thomas, welcome to Shaw’s Corner.

THOMAS. Mr Shaw, it is a great honour to meet you.

GBS. Not at all. I have to meet myself every day and I assure you it is… nothing special. Please…

He gestures, they sit.

Forgive me for having to make you wait, I was detained by the Inquisition.

THOMAS. So it’s true? You’re writing a play about St Joan?

GBS. I have heard that rumour. Sometimes I believe it, sometimes not.

THOMAS. May I publish a hint?

GBS. My dear Thomas, it would be folly for a mere playwright to attempt to manipulate the press.

THOMAS. Really? When you were young, didn’t you write articles about your own plays? Under false names?

GBS. Only to attack myself. Someone had to do it.

THOMAS. Please, don’t misunderstand me. I admire the way you struggled. Getting noticed is the first duty of an artist. I say communicate or die.

GBS. Mmm. The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

THOMAS is momentarily stumped by this.

A pause.

Mint tea?

THOMAS.…Excellent.

CHARLOTTE. It’s the maid’s day off, let me…

She is about to stand but SHAW is on his feet before her.

GBS. I will make it.

CHARLOTTE. Crush the leaves.

GBS. As you know, my dear, I prefer to tear them.

CHARLOTTE. If you tear the leaves, half the mintiness is already on your fingers.

GBS. On the contrary, the mintiness is released. (To THOMAS.) There is also carrot cake.

He grins and exits at speed.

CHARLOTTE. The pleasures of domesticity, Mr Thomas. Are you married?

THOMAS. Frances is devoted to me. She has to be, particularly as I am a traveller, much in the world.

CHARLOTTE. Indeed? (A beat.) Forgive me for being blunt. But I do believe I know why you are here.

THOMAS. Perhaps we should wait until Mr Shaw…

CHARLOTTE. He does intend to make tea but he is writing a play and is easily diverted. He has a writing hut at the bottom of the garden. And he can disappear altogether to railway stations.

THOMAS. Ah.

A pause.

CHARLOTTE. You are here about Colonel Lawrence.

THOMAS. Yes.

CHARLOTTE. Shaw and I were at the Covent Garden Theatre for your lecture.

THOMAS. I did peek through the curtain to see your arrival in the stalls. The audience stood and applauded.

CHARLOTTE. My husband knows all about entrances.

THOMAS. I did have hopes that you and Mr Shaw would come backstage.

CHARLOTTE. Please be reassured, we very much enjoyed the evening.

THOMAS. Well, good.

A pause.

CHARLOTTE. Perhaps your title was a little brash.

THOMAS. ‘Brash’?

CHARLOTTE. ‘Lawrence Hero of Arabia As I Knew Him.’

THOMAS. Well, he is a hero and I did know him.

CHARLOTTE. You did give the impression that had there been water in the desert, Colonel Lawrence would have walked upon it.

THOMAS. You have to popularise, Mrs Shaw. You have to hammer home. The lectures are for the general public, which is huge.

CHARLOTTE. And you did hugely generalise.

THOMAS. May I blow my trumpet?

CHARLOTTE. As loud as you wish.

THOMAS. Without my photographs, my articles in the press both sides of the Atlantic, my lecture tour, without me, would the world know anything about ‘Lawrence of Arabia’?

CHARLOTTE. One is tempted to reply: can one really know anything at all about him? I find Tom Lawrence an enigma, even after reading his manuscript.

THOMAS. Manuscript?

CHARLOTTE. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

THOMAS. You’ve read the Seven Pillars?

CHARLOTTE. Lawrence asked Shaw to edit it. He’s made a start but heaven knows when he’ll finish.

THOMAS. You have the Seven Pillars of Wisdom in this house? (Looks around.) In this room?

CHARLOTTE. I gather you have not read it.

THOMAS. No. Yes. Not actually… no. He told me he lost it on a railway station in a place called Reading.

CHARLOTTE. He did. What is it about men in my life and railway stations?

THOMAS. So there was another copy…

CHARLOTTE. Oh no. Lawrence sat down and wrote it all out again. In six weeks. Then gave it to us.

THOMAS (losing his temper). I am sick and tired of this treatment! I was there with him in Arabia. If anyone is to edit his goddamn book, it should be me!

CHARLOTTE. Mr Thomas, language.

THOMAS. I am badly dealt with. Very badly. Lawrence agreed to appear at my lectures. Has he turned up, even once? No. And next week we are meant to leave for the States! All he has to do is simply appear. Not speak, not take questions, just stand there. You know, in the robes.

CHARLOTTE. Not on a camel?

THOMAS. Animals are difficult on tour.

CHARLOTTE. What do you want me to do, Mr Thomas?

THOMAS. Tell me where he is.

CHARLOTTE. You mean you have lost him?