Paradise Now! E-Book

Margaret Perry

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

Seitenzahl: 96

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'It doesn't happen all the time. That you really connect with someone. It's rare to meet someone like you.' Gabriel Dolan's never been up to much. That's what everyone says. Until she meets Alex, a young, ambitious woman who sells essential oils for a multi-level marketing company called Paradise – and overnight, Gabriel is drawn into a bright, new, floral-scented world. In Paradise, you're your own boss. In Paradise, you could make a fortune. Embraced by a new community of women just like her, Gabriel rises through the ranks of the company like a shooting star. But when she gets to the top, it doesn't quite feel like she thought it would. Margaret Perry's play Paradise Now! is a funny and raging drama about ambition, exploitation and the search for connection in a fractured world. It was first performed by an all-female cast at the Bush Theatre, London, in December 2022, directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart, and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre at the Oliver Awards. This revised edition was published in 2025.

Leseprobe

Margaret Perry

PARADISE NOW!

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Acknowledgements

Characters

A Note on the Human Pyramid

Paradise Now!

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Paradise Now! was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, on 2 December 2022, with the following cast:

ANTHIE

Annabel Baldwin

GABRIEL

Michele Moran

ALEX

Shazia Nicholls

CARLA

Ayoola Smart

LAURIE

Rakhee Thakrar

BABY

Carmel Winters

Director

Jaz Woodcock-Stewart

Designer

Rosie Elnile

Lighting Designer

Alex Fernandes

Sound Designer & Composer

Jasmin Kent Rodgman

Movement Director

Sung Im Her

Assistant Director

Dubheasa Lanipekun

Co-Costume Designer & Design Associate

Hazel Low

Costume Maker

Ruth Best

Movement Consultant

Ioli Filippakopoulou

Dramaturg

Deirdre O'Halloran

Casting Director

Polly Jerrold

Production Manager

Tabitha Piggott for eStage

CSM (Rehearsals)

Aida Bourdis

CSM (Tech & Performances)

Adriana Perucca

Deputy Stage Manager

Emily Mei-Ling Pearce

Assistant Stage Manager

Tayla Hunter

Thank You

To the play’s earliest and kindest readers – Maud and Playgroup, Nathan, Bertie, Zoe and Blooms, and Kitchen Collective – Holly, Iman, Caitlin and Gill.

To Jessi, for arranging for Jaz and I to meet in Shepherd’s Bush Wetherspoons in 2018 and for everything – everything! – since.

To my family, especially Conor for his cheerfully aggressive marketing of the play to all and sundry.

To my pals, for coming en masse to laugh and cry at all the right bits.

To Annabel, Ayoola, Carmel, Michele, Rakhee and Shazia – I’m obsessed with all of you.

To Aida, Ade, Alex, Dubheasa, Emily, Hazel, Ioli, Jasmin, Polly, Rosie, Sung Im, Tabby and Tayla.

To everyone at the Bush, ’specially Dee, Shannon, Oscar, Francis, Lynette, Lauren and Dan.

And to Jaz. Smashed it. Crushed it. BIG LOVE.

M.P.

Characters

GABRIEL, sixty-three, female, white Irish, from Cork. An over-sleeper, she often accidentally sleeps for twelve hours at a time, but she never feels that rested when she wakes up. Sometimes she has exhausting dreams in which she is doing tasks she hasn’t been given enough time to complete

BABY, fifty-nine, female, white Irish, from Cork, Gabriel’s younger sister. An under-sleeper, she never really winds down properly. She often falls asleep in her clothes without brushing her teeth or washing her face. When she goes under, she never dreams

CARLA, twenty-five, female, Black Irish, from Cork. A light and fitful sleeper, she wakes often in the night, the slightest noise will wake her. She usually plays a game on her phone to try to fall back to sleep, something repetitive and soothing. Or listens to an audiobook she’s heard a hundred times before

ANTHIE, twenty-nine, female, any ethnicity, from London. A deep and sound sleeper, she can nod off whenever she is tired. A champion sleeper on planes/trains/buses, she once fell asleep head on hands at her kitchen table and woke up feeling completely refreshed. She prefers to sleep without curtains and wake naturally with the daylight

LAURIE, thirty-four, female, any ethnicity, from Britain, not from London. An insomniac, she’s tried everything but she can’t seem to get more than two hours a night at the moment. When she does get a shred of rest, she talks in her sleep

ALEX, thirty-five, female, any ethnicity, from the same place as Laurie. A careful and organised sleeper, she has a religious wind-down routine, including a seven-step skincare process. She can’t drop off without something on in the background – a podcast, or brown noise

And…

FIONA FRANKS, female, ageless, a disembodied voice. The She-E-O of Paradise, sleeps like a baby.

Setting

London. Now. Several worlds layered on top of one another. Scene directions are a recipe, not an instruction manual.

A Note on Punctuation

A character’s name without any dialogue indicates a non-verbal response. Different and more active than a pause.

A line ending with no punctuation indicates a suspended continuous thought.

Words in [square brackets] are unspoken.

The spacing of the dialogue, the use of upper and lower-case letters and the punctuation is all there to convey tone and line delivery.

A Note on the Human Pyramid

This play asks its six actors to be open to attempting a human pyramid. That openness is all that’s required. Please don’t cast actors based on their acrobatic abilities – find the best actors for the roles, and then adjust the pyramid section to suit the people you have in the room.

The order of the pyramid is not set except that Gabriel is on the top. It’s not at all crucial that the pyramid is a success. What matters is that we understands what the characters are trying to attempt without the word ‘pyramid’ ever being spoken: and that we understand that Gabriel really wants to be on the top. The tumble out of the formation is also not essential. The essentials are: these six people try – Gabriel tries to get on top – that demand causes the pyramid to fail and causes Laurie to be (minorly) hurt.

What matters more than any of the above is that the actors feel safe. We had a brilliant circus movement director and consent was built into every step – when someone would climb on, they’d get verbal confirmation from the people below them that the position was comfortable for them, and if it wasn’t comfortable, the actors, in character, asked for adjustments. Lines should be adjusted and improvised according to what is found in the room. Please don’t worry about going off-script in finding the best version for your cast.

ACT ONE

One

BABY stands, coat on, swaying a little. She holds her arm at a slightly funny angle. Not so much that you’d immediately notice it. GABRIEL is on the couch under a blanket.

BABY. Why’re you sitting in the dark?

GABRIEL. Keep meaning to turn the light on. How was your shift?

BABY. Fine.

GABRIEL. Awful day. Awful, awful day.

BABY. Yeah, I –

GABRIEL. So I went to the corner shop.

BABY moves her arm slightly.

BABY. Great!

GABRIEL. This new woman behind the counter was a right bitch to me. I smiled and said hello, you know, and she said nothing. She didn’t even look at me. Like I wasn’t there.

BABY. It’s good you got out today.

GABRIEL. She could have said hello. Two syllables. Hell-o.

BABY. I’m sure she was just tired.

GABRIEL. Right. Yeah. And I wouldn’t know anything about that.

BABY. No – I just meant, she’s on her feet all day.

GABRIEL. Why are you taking her side?

BABY. I’m not –

GABRIEL. Why can’t you ever be on my side?

BABY. I’m always on your side. I don’t have another side.

GABRIEL. You weren’t there. She was horrible.

BABY adjusts her arm.

BABY. Well. They won’t get our business in there again, will they.

GABRIEL smiles a little bit.

What did you buy in the shop then?

GABRIEL. Biscuits.

BABY. Just biscuits?

GABRIEL. Nice ones.

BABY. Where are they hiding?

GABRIEL rummages for the biscuits. BABY sits on the couch, gingerly taking off her coat. From the way she moves, we can now clearly see that her arm is injured, but GABRIEL, still under a dark cloud of her own thoughts, doesn’t notice. GABRIEL proffers the biscuits and BABY uses her good hand to take one from the pack.

These are nice ones.

GABRIEL. Glad you’re home.

BABY. Me too.

GABRIEL. Long day.

BABY. Long day.

Pause.

I feel a bit funny.

GABRIEL. Funny how.

BABY. It feels like – when I turn my head – my head is still where I left it.

She demonstrates, moving her head slowly left to right.

Like two heads. A real head, and a ghost head.

GABRIEL. Just the one head that I can see.

BABY. That’s a relief.

GABRIEL. Lovely head.

BABY. Dunno about that now. Not gonna win any prizes for this head.

GABRIEL. Course you would.

BABY. Best in show.

GABRIEL. If I was the judge.

BABY reaches for another biscuit with her injured arm, forgetting for a moment. The movement causes her sudden pain and GABRIEL finally notices, with immediate alarm.

Are you hurt??

BABY. Oh.

She laughs a bit to herself.

I bashed it.

GABRIEL. What?

BABY. I bashed my arm.

GABRIEL. What happened?

BABY. Car hit me a bit.

GABRIEL. Jesus!

BABY. Only clipped me, like. It was completely my fault. It was funny cos I saw it, the car, and I meant to move.

GABRIEL. What do you mean ‘meant to’.

BABY. I thought I’d moved out of the way. But I was still standing there.

GABRIEL. Show me.

BABY holds out her arm.

BABY. It’s fine.

GABRIEL (panicked). It doesn’t look fine.

BABY. Oh that’s probably just the way I’m holding it.

GABRIEL. You’re probably holding it like that cos it hurts!

GABRIEL looks frantically at her arm.

What should we do?

Pause.

BABY. About what.

GABRIEL. Your arm?? Can you move it?

BABY moves it a bit. It causes her pain, which she masks as best she can.

BABY. Think it’s fine.

GABRIEL. But what if it’s broken?

BABY. I think I’d be howling, if it was broken?

GABRIEL. I don’t know if you’d be howling. I don’t know about arms.

BABY. It’s not so bad, I think. Don’t worry. You go to bed and we’ll see in the morning.

GABRIEL. Are you sure?

BABY. I’m fine. Honestly. I’m just so, so tired.

Pause.

GABRIEL. Me too. (Pause.) Get some rest. Switch your brain off. Okay?

BABY. I will.

GABRIEL gently touches BABY’s arm.

GABRIEL. What did the driver have to say for himself?

BABY. She didn’t stop.

GABRIEL (with sudden fury). She didn’t stop?

BABY. She looked back at me and I waved. I gave her a little wave, to say, I’m okay.

BABY tries to do the wave with her arm. No. That hurts. She puts a biscuit into her mouth using her good arm.

GABRIEL gets up and starts to head towards bed. She looks at BABY like she’s going to say something.

What?

GABRIEL. Get some proper sleep.

BABY (getting comfier on the couch). I will.

GABRIEL. Go into bed. You’ll sleep better.

BABY. Yes boss.

GABRIEL goes. BABY gets comfier under the blanket. She props her arm on a cushion. She’s too wired for sleep yet. With her good arm, she eats the entire packet of biscuits, one after another after another.

Two

The same night, the same time, SOMEWHERE ELSE.

ANTHIE is in bed, awake, the sheets rumpled. The thin sound of a person crying is coming through the wall behind her head.

CARLA comes in, in a big T-shirt, carrying two glasses of water. She gets back into bed and passes one of the glasses to ANTHIE.

ANTHIE. Thanks.

They both drink water.

(Indicating the wall, the crying.) Is she okay? Your housemate?

CARLA. Dunno.

ANTHIE. Should we check?

CARLA. I knocked on her door the last time, but she didn’t answer. So I figure she probably wants to be left alone.

ANTHIE downs her water.

Or maybe she didn’t hear me knocking.

ANTHIE. How do you know her?

CARLA. I don’t really.

Pause.

ANTHIE. I’ve had a lovely time.

CARLA. Me too.

ANTHIE. Thanks.

ANTHIE reaches for her T-shirt and pulls it on. She throws back the covers. Shivers a little.

CARLA. Are you going?

ANTHIE. Oh, eh –

CARLA. Stay, if you like.

ANTHIE. Oh, I should probably –

CARLA. I’d like you to stay.

CARLA climbs on top of her. Kisses her.

ANTHIE. Persuasive.

In between kisses –

CARLA. I wanted you so much the second I saw you tonight.

ANTHIE. Yeah?