Scuttlers E-Book

Rona Munro

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

Seitenzahl: 93

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A thrillingly fast-paced play about youthful disaffection, protest and violence, drawing on the history of the Scuttlers, the youth gangs of nineteenth-century Manchester. It's 1882 and the streets of Manchester are crackling with energy, youth and violence. As workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution, 50,000 people are crammed into one square mile. The mills rumble thunderously day and night. The air is thick with smoke. Life is lived large and lived on the street. This is the world's very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives. Invisible in history, their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat and repeat over the decades that follow. Scuttlers by Rona Munro was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2015.  With nine leading roles and a large cast of mill workers and gang members, Scuttlers is well suited to performance by schools and youth groups, who will enjoy its physical energy and dramatic storyline.

Leseprobe

Rona Munro

SCUTTLERS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Author’s Note

Original Production

Characters

Scuttlers

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Author’s Note

Scuttlers was written in response to the street riots of 2011. It was also written as a kind of continuation of one of my happiest working experiences, my adaptation of Mary Barton for the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2006. That was my first proper encounter with the fascinating history of Manchester, the world’s very first industrial city. The events witnessed first-hand by Elizabeth Gaskell and wonderfully brought to life in her novels underline one point very clearly: if you think of any problem associated with modern urban living and an industrialised workforce, it will have happened in Manchester first. Street gangs are no exception to this rule.

However, what struck me, reading the newspaper accounts of the doings of the scuttlers from the nineteenth century, was how closely they mirrored the same papers and other commentators reporting on the 2011 riots. Whatever those nights of violence represented, it’s clear they are not just a sickness of our age: the same sickness has plagued us for well over a hundred years.

The events and characters in the play are based on events and characters from 1884 to the present day.

The play Scuttlers is therefore intended to be of its time but of our time too. We found our own way of representing that in the first production at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and I was very lucky to be working with some extraordinary collaborators in my director and creative team who helped me bring that to life.

If you are about to try and find your own way into that, then feel free to be bold with the play’s sensibility and design.

If you are working in a context that makes the ‘sweary words’ a problem, maybe a school or youth venue whose policies simply make that impossible, can I ask that you only remove them if you have to, and please do not censor anything else – these were real lives, they deserve a real voice.

In my research for this original drama I am indebted to the work of Dr Andrew Davies of Liverpool University, author of the book The Gangs of Manchester (Milo Books, 2008).

R.M.

Scuttlers was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 5 February 2015, with the following cast:

THERESA

Rona Morison

POLLY

Chloe Harris

MARGARET

Caitriona Ennis

JOE

Tachia Newall

SUSAN

Anna Krippa

JIMMY

Dan Parr

THOMAS

David Judge

SEAN

Bryan Parry

GEORGE

Kieran Urquhart

POLICEMAN

Duncan Ross

Director

Wils Wilson

Designer

Fly Davis

Lighting

Natasha Chivers

Sound

Peter Rice

Composer

Denis Jones

Choreographer

Eddie Kay

Casting Director

Jerry Knight-Smith CDG

Assistant Director

Charlotte Lewis

Company Manager

Lee Drinkwater

Stage Manager

Julia Reid

Deputy Stage Manager

Gareth Newcombe

Assistant Stage Manager

Sarah Goodyear

COMMUNITY ENSEMBLE

Pawel Adamkiewicz, Ramial Aqueel, Abigayle Bartley, Casey Birks, Tabitha Bowman, Hayden Burns, Joe Callaghan, Michael Coleman, Duncan Crompton, Tyler Dobbs, John Dudley, Tom Durrant, Conor Glean, Jonah Gourlay, Lois Griffiths-Balaam, Josh Hawson, Duncan Hibbert, Steven Ireland, Cassandra John-Baptiste, Tim Law, Calum Lill, Tom Lyons, Charlie Maguire, Joseph Mihranian, Ceri Moss, Olivia Peers, Leyla Percival, Sonny Poontip, Adriano Primerano, Dave Ramsden, Lyndsay Rowan, Ciara Warburton

Characters

THERESA

MARGARET

POLLY

SEAN

JIMMY

THOMAS

JOE

SUSAN

GEORGE

POLICEMAN

And GANG MEMBERS, MEN, WOMEN, WORKERS

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

ACT ONE

The Street

Jersey Street, Ancoats, 1882.

It’s night, the air is dim and smoky. Only the pubs are blazing with light. The boom and rattle of the weaving machines thunders through the street, spilling out of the mills that loom on every side.

The street is always full of people. The mills run all night, there is trade and traffic on the street all night, a constant press of bodies moving up and down.

At times we see the characters isolated in a bubble of their own preoccupations but they are never actually alone, there is always street life and other people close around them. On the street there are always people moving to and fro. On their way to their shift, dragging home, exhausted, selling, buying, eating, drinking, sleeping and living in doorways…

If possible, some members of the cast or chorus are always moving through or round the space, in a different guise each time they appear.

Fifty thousand people living and working in one square half-mile where half the population is always awake and always working. It is full of dark energy and life.

The sound of the mills and the sound of the street are competing rhythms.

As crowds move up and down the street, something is happening, young men and women are making eye contact, signing to each other above the racket of the mills, drawing together, forming a gang. As their group grows larger and larger, other people on the street start to draw away from them, sensing their danger.

THERESA is part of the gang, so are MARGARET, POLLY, SEAN and JIMMY. They are waiting, poised, watching the street. The Tigers are ready to pounce…

THOMAS is also there but not part of the group; he observes the following action but does not join in.

A drunk MAN lurches out of a pub and starts his unsteady journey home. THERESA points at him, her shout audible even above the racket of the mills and the street.

THERESA. Tear him, Tigers!

SEAN leads them as they close on the MAN, they throw him between them, punching and kicking.

The MAN falls then manages to scramble up and run, they all chase him off, they’re laughing and elated. They do a victory dance, stamping and cheering then they scatter into the dark, shouting, as the mills thunder on…

The Lodging House

A tiny bed or bed roll in a dark room. MARGARET and THERESA huddled together on the bed, a little light between them. POLLY is at the foot of the same bed. Now and throughout POLLY wears boy’s clothes. All of them are breathless, recovering from the fight, shushing each other.

The sound of the mills is quieter, a low rumble outside.

Other beds and bodies are squashed all round them, very close. There is rustling and groaning all around them in the dark from other sleepers.

POLLY. That were good. He bled. That were good.

THERESA shushes her, casting wary looks at the sleepers round them. MARGARET is in shock.

MARGARET. He looked right at me. He saw me.

THERESA. Good, let him know why he’s getting his head broken.

POLLY. I got my toe right in his teeth. They shattered like crockery. Did you see?

MARGARET. He’ll hate me now.

THERESA. What do you care? You hate him. He’ll be frightened now. He’ll know we’re watching him. He won’t even dare look at you. Tigers don’t tear you ’less you’re asking for it. He got what he deserved.

POLLY (satisfaction). Blood.

MARGARET. She’ll hate me now.

THERESA. What do you care?

MARGARET. She’s my mother.

THERESA. I think it’s overrated. Mother love. I don’t think it’s so great. Because you can’t choose your mother, can you? There you are, in the fields of heaven or wherever you are, floating in the dark like a nameless candle flame, and then there you are sucked into the world to drop out the fanny of any old whore…

MARGARET. She’s not a whore.

THERESA (checking herself). Alright… alright… if you say so…

Friends you choose. Friends choose you back. That’s something you can lean on like a warm stone wall. That’s something that can last beyond the grave.

MARGARET. You don’t have any family at all?

THERESA. No. All gone. So all my money’s mine. That’s how I’m fat and beautiful. I’ll buy you a pie if you like.

MARGARET. He did deserve that, didn’t he?

THERESA. Course he did.

MARGARET. And she called me a liar. My own mother.

THERESA. Well, if he’s trying to fuck you what does that make her? That makes her a sad old fool who fancies a kiddie-fiddler. Who’d want to be that? Course she’d rather you were a liar.

MARGARET. I’m never going back to live with her. I’d rather sleep in the street.

THERESA. Oh, you won’t say that once you’ve tried it. Don’t worry about that. You can sleep here. Long as you like. Sometimes I don’t even pay for this bed. The woman here likes my face. And you’re working. You can save every penny for Sunday when you’re here. You’re set up. You’ll sleep here with me and Polly and no one will ever get in your bed again unless you want them there.

MARGARET. You’re right. He was asking for it. He deserved a kicking.

POLLY. Yeah, we broke him alright.

THERESA. Tigers don’t tear you ’less you’re asking for it. I don’t let them. And that’s how it is. Are you cold?

MARGARET. No.

THERESA. You’re shaking.

MARGARET (really upset). It’s just… it’s just…

THERESA. I know. Your own mother turned you out for telling the truth. You’re a kitten she put in a bag and threw in the canal. Well, I pulled you out. You’re safe now.

MARGARET hugs her. THERESA hugs her back.

MARGARET. Thank God for you, Theresa.

THERESA. I’ll look after you, see if I don’t, ask little Polly there. She’s my little mouse. I took her in and fed her crumbs and look how shiny she is now.

POLLY. I’m not your pet, I’m your guard dog. I’ve got teeth, remember?

THERESA. I’ve enough to feed all the wild creatures, me.

I’ll make a bet with you, Margaret. I bet that inside three months, if you know anywhere else you’d rather be than squashed in with me, roaring round the streets with me, sharing every bite of bread we ever get and kicking anyone who tries to even slide a piece of paper between us, if you know any other person you’d rather have for a friend I’ll cut off all my hair and knit you a pair of slippers out of it. I’ll give you my own shoes, buckles and all.

A voice out of the mounds of sleepers pressed round them.

VOICE. Keep it down, will you.

POLLY. You keep it down or I’ll bite it off.

THERESA. No more biting now, Polly, biting’s done now. We’ll sleep, we’ll work, then the Tigers’ll run again. That’s how it is.

They sleep. Then the noise of the mills grows again and they’re all getting up, moving out, hurrying to work.

Perhaps the room transforms to the inside of the mill and we see them at work?

Perhaps they are just part of a Metropolis-like mass, moving along the street together…

This is a summer day, a summer afternoon, the sun is blazing down but the world is full of hot smoke. One end of the street is not visible to the other.

The street is a canyon of shafts of smoky sunlight between high dark walls.

Every so often there’s a roar and blaze of fire from the ironworks halfway down the street.

The racket of the machines never stops.