Mogadishu E-Book

Vivienne Franzmann

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

Seitenzahl: 128

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A gripping and urgent play about a well-meaning teacher who intervenes on behalf of a troublesome student, with terrifying consequences. When white secondary-school teacher Amanda is pushed to the ground by black student Jason, she's reluctant to report him as she knows exclusion could condemn him to a future as troubled as his past. But when Jason decides to protect himself by spinning a story of his own, Amanda is sucked into a vortex of lies in which victim becomes perpetrator. With the truth becoming less clear and more dangerous by the day, it isn't long before careers, relationships and even lives are under threat. Vivienne Franzmann's first play, Mogadishu won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2008 and the George Devine Award in 2010. It was first produced at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2011.

Leseprobe

Vivienne Franzmann

MOGADISHU

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Original Production

Characters

Mogadishu

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Acknowledgements

My thanks to everyone at the Royal Exchange Manchester, Bruntwood and the Lyric, all the actors involved and everyone that offered their experiences, opinions and support. Extra-special thanks to Matthew Dunster for the wise words and all the encouragement.

For Kev

Mogadishu was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester on 26 January 2011, with the following cast:

JASON

Malachi Kirby

CHLOE

Tara Hodge

SAIF

Farshid Rokey

CHUGGS

Tendayi Jembere

DEE

Savannah Gordon-Liburd

JORDON

Hammed Animashaun

FIRAT

Michael Karim

AMANDA

Julia Ford

BECKY

Shannon Tarbet

CHRIS

Ian Bartholomew

PETER

Christian Dixon

BEN

Fraser James

Director

Matthew Dunster

Designer

Tom Scutt

Lighting Designer

Philip Gladwell

Sound Designer

Ian Dickinson

Voice Coach

Wyllie Longmore

Fight Director

Kevin McCurdy

Assistant Director

Kim Pearce

The production was revived in 2011, and toured to Liverpool Playhouse; Cambridge Arts Theatre; Oxford Playhouse; Warwick Arts Centre; Royal & Derngate, Northampton; Eastbourne Devonshire Park; Nuffield Theatre, Southampton; Northern Stage, Newcastle and Lyric Hammersmith, London. There were the following changes to the cast:

JASON

Ryan Calais Cameron

AMANDA

Jackie Clune

BECKY

Rosie Wyatt

CHRIS

James Barriscale

PETER

Jason Barnett

BEN

Nicholas Beveney

Characters

JASON, fifteen, leader, black

JORDON, fifteen, Chloe’s best friend, black

SAIF, fifteen, Chuggs’ best friend, Asian Muslim

CHUGGS, fifteen, Saif’s best friend, black

CHLOE, fifteen, a big gob, white

DEE, fifteen, Jason’s girl, more serious than most, black

FIRAT, fourteen, recently arrived from Turkey

AMANDA, Becky’s mum, forties, English teacher, white

BECKY, fourteen, eyeliner and wristbands, white

CHRIS, head teacher, fifties, white

PETER, Amanda’s husband, forties, IT support worker, black

BEN, Jason’s father, forties, security guard, black

Location

A school in London

ACT ONE

Scene One

Under the stairs. School. A small space somewhere between in and out, public and private. JASON is smoking. Around him are his attendants; JORDON, SAIF, CHUGGS, CHLOE and DEE. They are laughing and pissing about. JASON is in charge. An explosion of laughter; JASON pushes JORDON, who falls into CHLOE. She shrieks lots of ‘fuck you’, ‘gay’, ‘fucking prick’. A bit of shoving and pushing, all good-humoured enough. FIRAT walks down the stairs, sees the group, goes to turn around, looks at his watch, thinks he will be late, reconsiders and hurries past them; but in the pissing about, JASON knocks into him and FIRAT falls onto him. JASON burns himself on his joint.

JASON. What the fuck?

FIRAT. Sorry.

JASON. What you doing, man?

FIRAT. Sorry.

JASON. You burnt me. You fuckin’ burnt me.

FIRAT. Yes. Yes. Sorry.

JASON. He burnt me. He fuckin’ burnt me.

FIRAT. It was accident.

JASON. You burnt a hole in my top.

FIRAT. Sorry.

JASON. This is my favourite top, innit.

JORDON. It is. He wears it all the time.

FIRAT. You bumped me.

JORDON. From Nike Town.

CHUGGS. You bummed him.

JORDON (to CHLOE). I got the same one in blue, like a duck-egg blue. Sick.

CHUGGS. Did you hear what he said? Jas, you bummed him.

Laughter.

FIRAT. I said sorry. What do you want me to do?

CHUGGS. He said he bummed him.

JASON. I want you to go back in time and not to have burnt a hole in my bare fuckin’ expensive Nike top.

FIRAT. Don’t be silly billy.

Barely suppressed sniggers from the others. JASON, embarrassed, starts to laugh.

JASON (laughing). You’s out of order. Who the fuck do you think you are? This is my favourite fuckin’ top and you burnt a fuckin’ hole in it. Callin’ me a silly billy. He’s callin’ me a fuckin’ silly billy.

FIRAT (noting change in atmosphere, smiles and wags his finger). You should not smoke in school.

JASON. Don’t tell me what to do, innit.

FIRAT. Get cancer. In your lungs.

JASON. Don’t tell me what to do, you cunt.

Pause.

Arab cunt.

FIRAT. Please do not say that.

JASON. Paki cunt.

FIRAT. You are racist.

JASON. Do you know me? Do you know anything about me?

FIRAT. You said I was an Arab C U Next Tuesday. You said –

JASON. You burnt my top.

FIRAT. Yes. I have said sorry.

JASON. You are a fuckin’ hoodie-burning, Arab terrorist bomb-making Muslim fuckin’ cunt.

FIRAT. I tire of this.

As he goes to walk away, JASON grabs him. The others are excited by it all. FIRAT is pushed to the floor. JASON is now furious. DEE goes to pull him away, he pulls away from her. Lots of noise. Pulling back, pushing forward. FIRAT on his hands and knees trying to straighten his glasses, picking up his books and his briefcase. JASON holding onto him, hitting him, nasty, meaning it. AMANDA comes down the stairs. She sees the fight and immediately rushes forward to stop it. She pushes her way through them.

AMANDA. Stop it. Boys!

The others cheer and shout, stoking it up, taking no notice of her.

Stop it. Jason, get off him. (She tries to pull JASON away.) Get off him. (To the others.) Don’t just stand there. Get off him. Jason!

They take no notice of her.

JASON. You pussy. I’ll cut you up.

AMANDA. That’s enough.

She gets in between them. FIRAT is on the floor trying to get away.

JASON. Chattin’ shit. Watch. Watch.

AMANDA. Jason, that’s enough.

JASON. Watch. You fuckin’ Paki cunt, Muslim cunt.

AMANDA. Stop it. I said stop it!

JASON. Fuck you.

JASON, full of rage, pushes AMANDA out of the way. She falls to the floor. The rest stop and look at her. Shock. DEE goes to AMANDA. SAIF stops her. AMANDA sits up. JASON feels the change in atmosphere. He turns round sees her on the floor. Registers what has happened. He looks at AMANDA. He looks at FIRAT. He turns and walks slowly away from the scene, followed by the rest of the group trying to appear casual, not worried, bopping. DEE stares at her. FIRAT gets up, trying to straighten his glasses. Puts them on and then looks at AMANDA, at DEE, back at AMANDA.

DEE. Miss?

Pause.

Miss?

AMANDA starts getting up. She doesn’t look at them. FIRAT stares, horrified.

AMANDA. Get to class.

They both look at her.

Now.

Scene Two

AMANDA’s house. Her daughter BECKY is with her. BECKY wears the same school uniform as the previous kids. AMANDA is sitting at her dining-room table nursing a large glass of wine. BECKY is sitting on the kitchen countertop and picking at a piece of toast.

BECKY. He’s such a wanker.

AMANDA. Rebecca, please.

BECKY. In primary, he begged Mrs Stapleton to let him take the school hamster home for the holiday and when he brought it back, it had this horrible burn mark on its fur, like a cigarette or something. And of course, no one made a fuss, just acted as if this was totally fucking normal.

AMANDA. Please stop swearing.

BECKY. Well, they fucking did, like it was no big deal that a hamster had been abused on its holiday.

AMANDA starts laughing.

It’s not funny, Mum.

AMANDA. You’re right, animals should not be abused while they’re on holiday.

BECKY. Stop taking the piss. Animal cruelty is no laughing matter.

AMANDA. True.

BECKY. Imagine if it had been someone else that had brought it back in that condition. If I went in and said, ‘Morning, Mrs Stapleton, I’ve brought back Hammy the Hamster, the school symbol of nurture, care and collective responsibility. Oh, sorry about his foot. Yes, it is a bloody stump. I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried to cut it off.

Pause.

Oh, is that not alright, Mrs Stapleton? Mrs Stapleton, why are you crying?’ If it was me or any other of the nice middle-class kids we would have been strung up on the climbing frame and been beaten like a piñata.

Pause.

You always make excuses for shits like him. I bet you a million fucking pounds that he’s got more praise postcards at home than anyone I know. And you probably fucking sent them.

AMANDA. It’s the swearing that’s bothering me most in this diatribe.

BECKY. I mean, we are seriously penalised just because we know what diatribe and piñata means. If I communicated with ‘bare, sick and butterz’ I’d have more awards than Judi Dench but because I’m white and middle class, it’s just fucking assumed that I should have manners. That I should work hard, have aspirations to go to university, spend a gap year building irrigation systems in Mogadishu and know who Judi Dench is. It’s so fucking unfair.

AMANDA. Where is Mogadishu?

BECKY. Dunno. I’ll Google it later. The point is –

AMANDA. I think I get the point.

BECKY. Go to see Henderson tomorrow morning, yeah?

AMANDA. Mr Henderson.

BECKY. Tell him you were assaulted.

AMANDA. It’s not that simple, Becky.

BECKY. God, it never is with you.

AMANDA’s phone rings. She signals for BECKY to stop talking as she answers.

AMANDA. Hiya, love, fine… yep… okay… Can you get some coffee?… No, only instant crap left. Get the Douwe Egbert, yeah? The Colombian roast. Not the Brazilian, the Colombian… yeah…

BECKY (shouting). Mum was assaulted at work today.

AMANDA (shut-up signs). Just Becky being silly… Yeah. Got all the coursework in. Bloody miracle… Mother fucking Courage… I know. Yeah. What? (To BECKY.) What did you get in your physics exam?

BECKY. A-star.

AMANDA. She got an A-star.

Loads of whooping from the other end of the phone, AMANDA pulls it away from her ear and laughs.

I think he’s pleased.

BECKY. Such a freak.

AMANDA. She said you’re a freak. (Laughs.) Yeah, yeah, see you soon. (She puts the phone down.) That’s great, Becky, well done, love. Shall we get a takeaway to celebrate?

BECKY. Are you going to tell Henderson?

AMANDA. How about an Indian? Or a Chinese? Fish and chips? Let’s get fish and chips –

BECKY. You need to see him first thing.

AMANDA. Can we change the subject, please?

BECKY. He needs to be punished.

AMANDA. It’s not all black and white. The world is not black and white. There’s always grey.

BECKY (groans). Not the metaphors. I hate the metaphors.

AMANDA. I’m trying to explain.

BECKY. You break the law and you get punished. It’s pretty standard the world over. He pushed you.

AMANDA. He was angry.

BECKY. And?

AMANDA. He was really angry.

BECKY. So what?

Pause.

Who was he fighting anyway?

AMANDA. A Turkish boy. Your year. Newish. Glasses. A bit, you know, nerdy.

BECKY. Not Firat. Please tell me it wasn’t Firat. Did he have a briefcase?

AMANDA. Yeah, I think so.

BECKY. For fuck’s sake, he’s a friend of mine.

AMANDA. You’ve never mentioned him.

BECKY. He’s not a friend-friend.

AMANDA. Oh, not a friend-friend.

BECKY. You know what I mean, not that kind of friend. I just know him.

AMANDA. So, he’s not a friend.

BECKY. He’s in my form. They take the piss out of him.

Pause.

AMANDA. Is he the one that sent you that card?

BECKY. No.

AMANDA. He is, isn’t he?

BECKY. Shut up, it wasn’t him.

AMANDA (laughing). That’s hilarious.

BECKY. You’re so immature.

AMANDA. Sorry.

BECKY. He’s a fucking genius. He passed his maths GCSE when he was nine in Turkey. He did it as some correspondence thing.

AMANDA. Sounds like a catch.

BECKY (ignoring her). That arsehole Jason Chambers was beating up Firat Yilmaz and you’re trying to protect him.

AMANDA. There are lots of things you don’t know about Jason.

BECKY. Here we go.

AMANDA. It’s true.

BECKY. What things?

AMANDA. You know I can’t tell you.

BECKY. Then I guess I’ll have to wait for his misery memoir – A Child Called Shit.

AMANDA. Becky, if you knew what I know, you’d think differently.

BECKY. But I don’t, do I?

AMANDA. And statistically, if you’re a working-class African-Caribbean boy, you are more likely to –

BECKY. Boo hoo, poor little black boy blah blah blah.

AMANDA. Some people have harder lives and –

BECKY. Loads of people have hard lives and they’re not all wankers.

AMANDA. But –

BECKY. Let’s face it, things haven’t been easy for me.

AMANDA. I know.

BECKY. But do I burn hamsters or push teachers? No, because everyone has a choice, Mum, and Jason Chambers chose to push you because you’re a soft touch and he knew it. I know it, Peter knows it and I bet Dad knew it too.

AMANDA (she lifts her glass). Game, set and match to Miss Rebecca know-it-all.

Scene Three

CHRIS’s office. CHRIS is sitting. AMANDA stands in the doorway.

AMANDA. I don’t want to make a big deal.

CHRIS. Right.

AMANDA. I just thought you should know.

CHRIS. Right.

AMANDA. I stood in his way.

CHRIS. Okay.

AMANDA. I shouldn’t have stood in his way.

CHRIS. Well…

AMANDA. Not in front of him. You know that with Jason, when he’s like that, you shouldn’t get in his way. I should have been more sensible.

CHRIS. Okay…

AMANDA. He wasn’t really angry with me. He just lashed out.

CHRIS. You said.

AMANDA. I just thought I should tell you.

CHRIS. And you have.

AMANDA. I have.

CHRIS. Yes.

AMANDA. I mean, I thought about not telling you, because… but then I thought you should know, you know, in case… I don’t know, I just thought you should know.

Pause.

And now you do.

Pause.

CHRIS. Mr Boudouani wanted Erkan Ali excluded for blowing up a crisp packet and popping it near him on the grounds of ‘sensory violation’, so you’ll excuse me while I try to gather my bearings here and wonder if Pauline has spiked my coffee with MDMA and I have entered a parallel universe. Have I got this right? A student pushes you in front of a group of other students and you don’t think this warrants an exclusion of any kind?

AMANDA. I know what it sounds like.

CHRIS. Amanda in bloody Wonderland.

AMANDA. But he’s been doing so well.

CHRIS. And now he’s bollocksed it up.

AMANDA. This will be a huge setback for him.

CHRIS. The others saw what he did.

AMANDA. What’s to be gained from sending him home?

CHRIS. Let me think about that. Oh yes, the message that we don’t tolerate violence in this school. For heaven’s sake, don’t be so –

AMANDA. I just worry –

CHRIS. Amanda.

AMANDA. I just worry what we’re sending him home to.

CHRIS. That’s not our problem.

AMANDA. It should be.

CHRIS. It’s not.

AMANDA. But surely we –

CHRIS. We can’t be everything. We’re not social workers.

AMANDA. But if we think –

CHRIS. And we’re not their parents. Christ, if we were, they’d be better behaved.

AMANDA. Please, don’t do anything just to make an example of him.

CHRIS. It’s probably on YouTube already, the little bastard.

AMANDA. What about if we meet, the three of us, he apologises, I accept and then it’s done, sorted?

CHRIS. Write up what happened.

AMANDA. But –

CHRIS. As soon as you can.

AMANDA. But –

CHRIS. I’ll take it from here.

AMANDA. What are you going to do?

CHRIS. You’ve told me. I’ll deal with it. I’ll add it to the bloody list.

Scene Four

Under the stairs. CHUGGS and SAIF are smoking a spliff.

CHUGGS. So we’s outside Chickstop and she comes steaming over.

SAIF. Where was I?

CHUGGS. Mosque, innit.

SAIF. Is it?