Mrs Delgado E-Book

Mike Bartlett

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

Seitenzahl: 66

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Helen, along with sixty-seven million other people, is in lockdown. Unfortunately, Helen's neighbour, Mrs Delgado, is not. Mike Bartlett's funny and poignant play for one actor tells a story of desire, control, raised blinds and lowered boundaries. Mrs Delgado was first performed by Ellen Robertson and directed by Clare Lizzimore in December 2021 at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, where Bartlett's play Snowflake premiered to critical acclaim. This edition also includes the monologue Phoenix, a powerful story of fire and destruction, self-deceit and the corrosion of trust. Phoenix was first performed in 2020 by Bertie Carvel as an audio drama, part of English Touring Theatre and Headlong's Signal Fires storytelling project.

Leseprobe

Mike Bartlett

MRS DELGADO

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

‘Writing in Isolation’ by Mike Bartlett

Note on Text

Mrs Delgado

Original Production Details

Phoenix

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Mrs Delgado was first performed at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, on 6 December 2021, with the following cast:

PERFORMER

Rakhee Sharma

Director

Clare Lizzimore

Lighting Designer

Rachel Luff

Sound Designer

Jon Ouin

Stage Manager

Tessa Gaukroger

Production Manager

Rachel Luff

Technician

Danny Owen

Technical Assistant

Ben Oakey

Producer

Alexandra Coke

Associate Producer

Will Young

Writing in Isolation

During the national restrictions in 2020 and 2021, I, like many other writers I know, found it hard to actually write. One may have thought, given writers’ often-expressed desire to have more solitude to get our work done, this situation would have played to our strengths. Instead, I found it draining, creatively. Of course this was partly because of the anxiety of, and concern for, the situation. But it also made me think about how writers for the theatre are hybrid creatures – half the garret-based social outsider, awkward and anti-social, and half the theatre animal, loving the company of actors and the thrill of collaboration. With that company gone, and the theatres closed, what can a playwright do?

I suppose these two plays are my answer to that question. They were both written during lockdown, with uncertainty about if and when the situation would end, and unsure as to how either of them might be performed. This explains their form. I knew that at the very least they could be short stories. But equally I can tell in the energy of the writing they are designed for performance. The narrator in Mrs Delgado is a third character (as revealed in the final line) and the choices they make in how they convey the story reveal them to us. They are also the human being we are physically with in the theatre; watching, and being watched, closely. I write this halfway through rehearsals on the first production at the end of 2021, at the Old Fire Station, Oxford. In that space, this intimate storytelling, without TV or phone screens and completely about people, has (as performed by the funny, nuanced and deeply moving actor Rakhee Sharma), become an act of release, defiance and hope.

Phoenix, on the other hand, was performed to its audience during lockdown itself . Through a conversation I was having with the director Sacha Wares, she put me in touch with Richard Twyman at English Touring Theatre. We devised an idea that I would write something that I would perform myself, in an outdoor public space near where I live, in Oxford (this was to be part of the national Signal Fires project). Ultimately increased Covid restrictions meant this proved impossible, so as a replacement, I suggested an audio piece, that could use the quiet intimacy of a whispered story, told around a fire. I immediately thought of Bertie Carvel to perform it, and he was captivating, understanding the play required detail, care and absolutely no judgement in performance. That he must just embody the story and character, and let the audience do the work of meaning and morality. It worked fantastically as an audio play. Hopefully one day it will also be performed in person, with a real, present, audience, around a real fire…

Mike Bartlett November 2021

Note on Text

( – ) means the next line interrupts.

(…) at the end of a speech means it trails off. On its own it indicates a pressure, expectation or desire to speak.

A line with no full stop at the end indicates that the next speech follows on immediately.

Dialogue in brackets indicates the point being made is parenthetical to the main argument.

This text went to press before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

ONE

There was something almost supernatural about Mrs Delgado, Helen thought, as she stared out her back window at the house opposite, while stirring her cup of tea with a Sainsbury’s own-brand chocolate bourbon. Helen liked the idea of the supernatural. In fact she wished the supernatural happened more often. It seemed to her that given the number of supernatural occurrences that appeared in fiction, the amount that happened in real life was… well… dispiriting. She remembered clearly at breakfast, aged four, when her mother explained in astonishingly plain language that the tooth fairy was entirely made up. That getting money for discarded body parts was a gruesome idea and wasn’t going to happen, not just because fairies didn’t exist but because the source of the cash, her, was broke. From then onwards the following twenty-eight years had been a process of lowering expectations. All possible avenues for the supernatural had one by one, been closed off: Father Christmas was an early casualty. Loch Ness has been scanned by lasers and found to be empty. They’d worked out how the Egyptians had built the pyramids and it turned out they didn’t use aliens, just physics. Even Derek Acorah turned out to be a fraud. And then died. Yes, she thought as the wet bourbon collapsed under the sheer weight of tea, the world had proved to be obstinately natural and consistently not-super.

Especially this year.

Mrs Delgado was, from what she could tell, pruning a house plant. Incredibly slowly.

Helen glanced down at an Amazon parcel by the door, still not disinfected. Recent reports were that the virus could survive on surfaces for twenty-eight days. That was a longer lifespan than any of her previous three relationships. Although the most recent ‘relationship’ maybe shouldn’t count since it was one night, entirely about sex, and sex that didn’t even happen. His name was Mark. They had met on Tinder and agreed a date. It had got off to a bad start when the restaurant had failed to receive her booking, and had no space. Her flat was just round the corner so they had gone back there, where one thing (him coming in) had very quickly led to another (him taking his top off). It was then awkward as she faced a moral dilemma. He was very attractive. He had muscles on his arms just the right size, like they came from genetic and accidental athleticism, not hours in the gym. Helen liked this. He also was quite lean and looked like he was ready to just sort of… go to town on her. He seemed adept, liberal, and generous. Like he was a man into actual real-life actual women who had bits and hair and fluids and needs. It was a guess of course but she was good at judging these things and so, in conclusion, yeah, she was definitely up for it.

Technically. Because unfortunately, unlike Mark, she’d not prepared for actual sex to be on the cards on this very first date and she hadn’t thought it through. Once he started coming on to her, moving closer, she had got flustered, at first found excuses to move away like, ‘Oh actually have you seen this weird shape in the wall?’ or ‘Actually shall I close the blind, we don’t want people looking in do we?’ but eventually that strategy had become exhausted and she had to stop him and say look, sorry, sorry, this kind of casual sexual encounter? Would you believe it’s actually against the rules?

We’re not allowed. Because of the old… You know, corona.

She smiled.

Then apologised. She was desperately sorry – really – but a quick fuck wasn’t going to be possible, not right now. Maybe next year? He was stopped in his tracks. He looked… bewildered and hurt and then looked up at her like she was some kind of weirdo.