LORENZO E-Book

Ben Targét

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

Seitenzahl: 69

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

When Ben Targét was nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2012 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, he was set on the path to becoming a critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning performance artist. Eight years later, amidst a global pandemic, he gave it all up to become the live-in carer for his uncle: an irascible octogenarian prankster called Lorenzo Wong. LORENZO is their story, a show that confronts the messiness of ageing and dying through the medium of storytelling, servitude to the audience and live carpentry, a combination not seen on the world stage since Nazareth circa 30AD. This book is the full script of that life-affirming show, with illustrations by Targét himself. It was directed by Adam Brace, and was premiered at Summerhall, Edinburgh, during the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it was awarded a Fringe First. It subsequently transferred to Soho Theatre, London.

Leseprobe

Ben Targét

LORENZO

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

A Fantasy Death card handed out to all audience members at the start of the show, along with a pen and a fresh cup of coffee.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Production History

LORENZO

Performance Notes

Company Biographies

For Adam, who nurtured this story.

For Esther and Alfie, who did the lion’s share of the care.

For Lee, who journeyed with me to the end.

Introduction

I like to think of LORENZO as a piece of memoir writing to be performed live. I hope you will enjoy it as such. Rather than reading this playtext as if it’s just a bunch of dry instructions for how to put on a niche stage show (which tbf, it sort of is as well), I’ve tried to make it feel as though you’ve tumbled into the journals and sketchbooks I kept during the twilight of mine and Lorenzo’s friendship. So, I’ve kept the stage directions to a bare minimum, even though the show itself featured many elements I could have expanded on in the script, such as an elegant set (featuring an exploding toilet), thoughtful lighting design (indicating chronology), discerning costume (as a reference to Lorenzo’s idiosyncratic tastes) and goofy choreography (to keep things playful). There are full performance notes – and acknowledgements – after the script.

As LORENZO is my first piece of writing for theatre spaces, when I began, I was concerned I didn’t have the skill to make the messiest and most human of situations I’ve yet experienced into a piece of entertainment that reflected it faithfully with heart and humour. I found inspiration in the stories of Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Patti Smith’s M Train, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I. These artists were my lighthouses and I returned to them over and over again, gleaning to learn how to render the deeply personal with a balanced sense of fun, irreverence, sorrow and hope. All things I hope this piece of work somehow has to declare, too, in its own way.

Lastly, this show was written to the music of Roman Tam, the godfather of Cantopop, and I strongly urge you to give his records a twirl before your day is done.

Take care, Ben

LORENZO previewed at Soho Theatre, London on 3 July 2023. It was first performed at Summerhall, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from 2–27 August 2023, where it won The Scotsman’s Fringe First Award. It transferred to Soho Theatre on 27 September 2023 for a three-week run.

LORENZO was developed at VAULT Festival, Leicester Comedy Festival, Machynlleth Comedy Festival, Tales of Whatever in Sheffield, The Bread & Roses Theatre, The Museum of Comedy, Camden Comedy Club and Angel Comedy Club.

LORENZO was commissioned by Soho Theatre with additional support from the Keep It Fringe Fund (with thanks to Phoebe Waller-Bridge for the generosity, you’re the real deal) and the Angel Comedy Writing Bursary (with thanks to Barry Ferns for the camaraderie throughout the creative process).

LORENZO was made by the following good people:

Writer and Performer

Ben Target

Director

Adam Brace

Director 2.0

Lee Griffiths

Producer

David Luff and Maddie Wilson for Soho Theatre

Set Designer

Tom Hartshorne for Morice Designs

Lighting Designer

Robert Wells

Stage Manager

Rose Hockaday

Choreographer

Chelsey Weisz

Creative Consultant

Letty Butler

Additional Consultants

Alex Hardy

Joz Norris

Lizzy Mansfield

Miranda Holms

PR

Chloé Nelkin Consulting

LORENZO

Eton Avenue

It’s September 2020. North Wembley. Lockdown Volume Two is about to begin.

I knock on Lorenzo’s front door.

All the windows are completely covered up with architectural paper.

Long rolls. Once white. Now stained by sunshine. Looking more like they’ve been soaked in coffee.

Lorenzo opens the front door naked.

I’m surprised because the uncle I remember from my childhood wore clothing, as all good uncles should. Bush on display, almost as feral as his front lawn. Penis, shrivelled by the twin savageries of time and the cold. Altogether, it looked like a Tic Tac in a haystack.

I’m here because my Cousin Esther called me.

‘Lorenzo’s had a stroke. I’ve been over to his place, and he wants to see you, Ben.’

I’ve not seen him in fifteen years. Sometimes people just drift apart.

Cousin Esther also said:

‘When I was at his house, there were two random people there. They said they were NHS nurses but had no ID. Lorenzo didn’t seem to understand what was going on, he just said “I’ve got people staying.”’

But these people had been through his rooms and piled up everything of worth:

Bosch tools.

Copper wiring.

Old computers.

What had confused Lorenzo was that they’d also taken care of him:

Fed him.

Helped him change.

Put him to bed at night.

But then when he was lying in bed, he could hear them upstairs, tinkering about, going through his stuff.

So, my cousin called the police.

‘It’s called cuckooing,’ the police say.

And they can’t arrest these people because Lorenzo has made the same mistake that people make with vampires:

He’d invited them in.

On the doorstep, I ask:

‘Lorenzo, why are you naked?’

‘I’ve lost my pants’ he says.

‘I can see that’ I say, ‘But don’t worry, they haven’t gone far.’

He’d lost them around his ankles.

His knees were shonky, so he asked me to pull them up. Now, it’s not every day that I’m invited to be that close to an octogenarian’s crotch, so whilst I was hoisting them up, in order to break the tension, I asked him how he was, at which point, he did what I can only describe as – and I wish I didn’t have to –

a really soupy fart.

And I could tell it was soupy because there was a line of shit across my knuckles.

Turns out he wasn’t that confused after all because when I said:

‘Lorenzo, why did you do that?’

He said: ‘You asked me how I am and I’m just bringing you up to speed.’

Today is the day I move in with Uncle Lorenzo.

***

Hello! Thank you for being here. Grab a coffee and settle in.

I’m Ben Target. I used to be a comedian, still am, sometimes. This show, however, is performance art with the occasional punchline.

Some people call me Ben Targét. This began as a mistake a promoter made when I started stand-up in 2009.

I didn’t correct him.

Then, other promoters went a step further and started putting an accent on the E.

I didn’t correct them either.

Then, when I got my first BBC Radio 4 credit, I rushed down to the newsagents to see my name in print and there it was with the fucking accent on the E, and I thought:

Well, I guess I’m Ben Targét now.

Recently, I was at the Soho Theatre, watching the Edinburgh Comedy Award – Best Newcomer-winning show, an award I was nominated for, Jesus, eleven years ago. A woman came up to me at the bar, I’d auditioned for her before and she’d become a very powerful TV booker since, because that’s the sort of effect my auditions have.

She said:

‘Ben Targét! I haven’t seen you in ten years! You used to be the funniest guy! After that first show of yours, I really thought you were going to be someone…

What happened to you?’

And I said:

‘Well, I had a colossal mental breakdown. Still going though! Still making things. Sometimes, I dream of being a comedian again.’

Which is probably not the sort of thing you’re supposed to say to a TV booker because it doesn’t secure you any immediate work.

I began making this show with a brilliant director called Adam Brace but sadly, he died halfway through the process. Which is, to be frank: deeply unprofessional of him.

But for a show about death, I can’t fault him for going grave-deep on the research.

However, if there’s any point during this where you’re thinking: ‘I’m not enjoying this bit OR the narrative doesn’t make any sense’, then I want you to know, that’s Adam’s fault.

***