The Tyler Sisters E-Book

Alexandra Wood

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

Seitenzahl: 109

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Three women, forty years, one ever-evolving bond. Fake sick days, Stonehenge, roller skates, champagne and glow-in-the-dark stars. The Tyler Sisters is a funny, heartening exploration of time, and the unassuming moments that make up our lives. Alexandra Wood's innovative play explores the deep and unruly waters of sisterhood. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London, in December 2019.

Leseprobe

Alexandra Wood

THE TYLER

SISTERS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production

Dedication

Characters

The Tyler Sisters

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

The Tyler Sisters was first performed at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London, on 13 December 2019. The cast was as follows:

MADDY

Caroline Faber

KATRINA

Angela Griffin

GAIL

Bryony Hannah

Director

Abigail Graham

Designer

Naomi Kuyck-Cohen

Lighting

Joshua Gadsby

Sound

Jon McLeod

Movement

Angela Gasparetto

For Rachel

Characters

MADDY, the eldest sister, twenty to sixty years old

GAIL, the middle sister, eighteen to fifty-eight years old

KATRINA, the youngest sister, sixteen to fifty-six years old

The play is for three women to perform, the parts should not be divided up into ‘younger’ and ‘older’.

A forward slash ( / ) indicates the point at which the next speaker begins.

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

1990

GAIL. You didn’t even ask.

KATRINA. It’s not your house.

GAIL. My room, / not yours

KATRINA. Not now.

GAIL. Not your house either, much mine as it is yours so you need to know your place.

KATRINA. Oh do I?

GAIL. Why d’you think you can just take what you want?

KATRINA. Because I can, I did.

And you weren’t using it.

GAIL. I was though, my stuff was in there, I was using it to store my stuff.

KATRINA. Well I’m using it to sleep in, which trumps storing stuff, sorry.

GAIL. Where am I supposed to sleep all summer?

KATRINA. Wherever you want, you can sleep in my old room if you want, I don’t mind.

GAIL. Don’t mind? That’s good of you, that’s really / generous.

KATRINA. Does it really matter?

GAIL. It’s my room, my place in the world.

KATRINA. Your place in the

A boxroom in your parents’ house. Have a little ambition Gail.

GAIL. It isn’t the boxroom, yours is the boxroom.

And I do have ambition, thank you. But for now, for now, that room is my place and you / can’t just

KATRINA. You’ve got a room in Leeds.

GAIL. No I don’t.

KATRINA. Where d’you stay then?

GAIL. Over the summer I don’t, not till September.

KATRINA. Have mine till then, like I said.

GAIL. What about Maddy’s? Why didn’t you take that?

KATRINA. She’s in it.

MADDY. I am in it, to be fair, I am actually in it.

KATRINA. Would’ve been a bit much to be all, vacate your room now Maddy, I’m taking over.

GAIL. But it’s okay to do it to me?

KATRINA. Not the same, you weren’t even here.

GAIL. We’ve established / that.

MADDY. I don’t think it’s the same, Gail, you weren’t here.

And we didn’t even know you were coming home this summer.

GAIL. Yeah, well, sorry, I am, I have, sorry to screw up your plans.

MADDY. What happened?

GAIL. I just love you all so much I couldn’t stand to be away a moment longer.

MADDY. That’s / nice.

KATRINA. Right.

GAIL. Just as well I did or you’d have Mum and Dad even more round your little finger. Didn’t they say you should ask me at least?

KATRINA. Maybe, I don’t know, I just did it, I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal, but I should’ve remembered you like to overreact at the / slightest

GAIL. I’m not / overreacting

KATRINA. We thought you were in Leeds all summer, I was planning to come visit, but that’s gone out the window / now I guess.

GAIL. Sorry to ruin your plans.

KATRINA. S’alright, going to Newquay instead.

GAIL. Who with?

KATRINA. Friends.

GAIL. Who?

KATRINA. You don’t know them.

GAIL. Do Mum and Dad know them?

KATRINA. In what way?

GAIL. Do they know who they are?

KATRINA. Do any of us really know who we are Gail?

GAIL. Alright, alright, so how will you feel when I take my room back when you’re in Newquay, how’d you think you’re going to like that?

KATRINA. I won’t like it at all.

GAIL. Yeah, that’s gonna suck for you, isn’t it.

KATRINA. I’d suggest you don’t do that.

GAIL. Really?

KATRINA. Yeah, I’d suggest you leave my room well alone.

GAIL. Oh really? That’s interesting that is, isn’t that interesting Maddy?

MADDY. Um, I don’t know if I’d say it was interesting.

GAIL. Yeah, no, I think that is. She can dish it out / but she

MADDY. People say lots of things are interesting but they say it in a way that I don’t think they think it’s interesting, so it’s quite confusing.

KATRINA. Interesting, Maddy.

MADDY. Is it?

KATRINA. No.

MADDY. Oh. You see.

KATRINA. I had sixteen years in that poky little box, it’s not fair, we should’ve swapped years ago.

GAIL. You got here last, not our fault.

KATRINA. Got here last? This isn’t camp, I didn’t get here late, I wasn’t born.

GAIL. Camp? Don’t say camp.

KATRINA. Back one minute and she’s already telling me what to say.

GAIL. Don’t say camp like that’s a thing we do, a thing anyone we know does. I hate when people use American references they’ve blatantly just seen on TV.

KATRINA. I have been to camp, we both have, Brownie camp, so screw you.

GAIL. Are you going to apologise?

KATRINA. For what? Reminding you you were a Brownie?

GAIL. For stealing my room.

KATRINA. Are you still going on about that?

1991

GAIL. They left me in charge.

KATRINA. Maddy’s in charge and she doesn’t have a problem with it, do you?

MADDY. I

GAIL. They left both of us in charge.

KATRINA. Maddy doesn’t have a problem with him.

GAIL. Well I do.

KATRINA. Is there anyone you don’t have a problem with?

GAIL. Plenty of people.

KATRINA. Who?

GAIL. Maddy.

KATRINA. Yeah coz Maddy doesn’t do anything / to upset you.

GAIL. I don’t have a problem with you, it’s him.

KATRINA. He’s my boyfriend, are you going to tell me who I can go out with now?

GAIL. He’s not your boyfriend.

KATRINA. Er, yes, he is.

GAIL. You might think he’s your boyfriend / but he’s

KATRINA. Fucking hell Gail, could you be more patronising?

GAIL. I just see it / like it is.

KATRINA. Coming from you. Coming from someone who can’t even get a boyfriend at university, where there are literally thousands of horny guys left right and centre and you can’t get one of them to / fuck you.

GAIL. It’s not like that.

KATRINA. So you can get one to fuck you?

GAIL. He’s not staying over while I’m in charge.

KATRINA. You’re not in charge, and he is.

GAIL. Maddy, back me up here.

MADDY. He is her boyfriend.

KATRINA. Thank you.

GAIL. Whatever you want to call him, he’s not staying over.

KATRINA. We call him Mo. Since that’s his name and most people call people by their names.

GAIL. Mo?

KATRINA. You got a problem with that too now?

GAIL. That for the Mohawk is it?

KATRINA. Is that what offends you?

GAIL. No, no, the drugs offend me Katrina, the drugs, not his hair.

KATRINA. Weed? You’re offended by weed? What kind of student are you?

GAIL. He does more than weed.

KATRINA. Expert are you?

GAIL. Do Mum and Dad let him stay?

KATRINA. They like him.

GAIL. Then they can’t know him.

KATRINA. You don’t know him.

GAIL. They let him stay?

KATRINA. He’s stayed over before, yeah.

GAIL. While they were here?

KATRINA. What do you think he’s going to do exactly?

GAIL. He was off his face.

KATRINA. So he was a bit drunk, big deal.

GAIL. It was more than that.

KATRINA. You’re worse than Mum and Dad.

GAIL. You don’t know how good you’ve got it.

KATRINA. Oh, you’ve had it tough have you?

GAIL. No, none of us have. So why are you hanging out with guys like him? What are you trying to prove?

KATRINA. Guys like him? Do you ever hear yourself?

GAIL. You know what I’m talking about.

KATRINA. Guys like him?

GAIL. You know what I mean.

KATRINA. What do you mean?

GAIL. He’s a drug addict.

KATRINA. Because he smokes a bit of weed?

MADDY. Is he?

KATRINA. No.

GAIL. Come on.

KATRINA. He’s not an addict.

GAIL. You might think I’m boring Katrina, but / you’re the cliché

KATRINA. You are.

GAIL. You’re using him just as much as he’s using you.

KATRINA. How exactly?

GAIL. You think he makes you interesting.

KATRINA. That your oh-so-clever analysis is it?

GAIL. Nothing clever about it, / it’s painfully obvious.

KATRINA. Well at least that’s true.

Please.

GAIL. It is, it’s embarrassing, when you look back at this you’re going to be embarrassed.

KATRINA. Well when you look back there’ll be nothing, nothing to remember.

MADDY. Stop it.

KATRINA. Your life, just this long blank, this long boring blank of nothingness.

GAIL. Do what you want but you’re not bringing him here.

MADDY. Please stop it.

GAIL. Let him use you if you want but I won’t let him use this house, no way.

KATRINA. Fine, I’ll go to his. If that’s what you want, I’ll go there.

MADDY. No.

KATRINA. You want to be in charge Gail, you explain that to Mum and Dad.

1992

In the garden, sunbathing. There’s quiet for a while.

KATRINA. What time is it?

Pause.

What’s the time?

MADDY looks at her watch.

MADDY. One-twenty.

KATRINA. When’s lunch?

I thought lunch was at one.

MADDY. Mum’s making it.

KATRINA. Can you ask her where it is?

MADDY. I think she’s still making it.

KATRINA. Okay, but can you ask her when it’ll be ready then?

GAIL. Ask her yourself.

KATRINA (shouts). Mum. Mum.

Pause.

She can’t hear me, could you just go in, you’re halfway up anyway.

MADDY gets up and walks to the kitchen.

Thanks Mads.

Silence.

MADDY returns.

MADDY. She says we have to wait till Dad’s back from the dump.

KATRINA. When’s that gonna be?

MADDY. He should’ve been back at one.

KATRINA. He’ll be talking to one of the men, he always gets involved in some long conversation about something one of them found and how people don’t know the value of things and how it’s a gold mine.

MADDY. It is a gold mine.

KATRINA. All he has to do is drive there, dump some stuff, come back, but no.

MADDY. You can find good stuff there.

KATRINA. Not when you’re s’posed to be back by one so people can eat.

MADDY. Found those medals.

KATRINA. What medals?

MADDY. Military medals. Fifteen of them in that biscuit tin.

KATRINA. When?

GAIL. You don’t remember?

KATRINA. Why would I remember a bunch of medals?

GAIL. She wore them for ages.

KATRINA. You wore a bunch of military medals?

MADDY nods.

Where?

MADDY indicates her chest.

Obviously there, where I mean, where did you go in these medals? Parades, memorial services, where?

MADDY. Everywhere. School.

KATRINA. School?

GAIL. How can you not remember this?

KATRINA. You wore military medals to school?

MADDY nods.

If that’d been me, they would’ve been confiscated in a minute.

MADDY. I said Granddad had died and I wanted to honour him.

KATRINA. But they weren’t Granddad’s.

MADDY. No, I found them.

GAIL. At the dump, which is why we’re / talking about

KATRINA. Didn’t people take the piss?

MADDY. Yeah but I just really loved them.

GAIL. D’you remember when Laura wore that black armband for like half a term?

KATRINA. Laura who?

GAIL. Maddy’s year. Laura Laura

MADDY. Tait.

GAIL. Yeah, Tait, and she wore that black armband when her gran died, like she was Victorian or something, it was so fucking weird.

KATRINA. Was she the anorexic?

MADDY. No, that was Laura Peterson. Laura Tait was blonde.

KATRINA. Didn’t know her. What’s the time, I’m hungry.

MADDY looks at her watch.

MADDY. One-twenty-five.

KATRINA. Right, he’s got till half-past then we’re eating, I don’t care.

1993

KATRINA. Wonder what it is. Drum roll.

GAIL unwraps a present.

GAIL. Love the paper.

MADDY. I made it.

GAIL. I know.

KATRINA. Likes to show us all up.

It’s a woolly hat and scarf in purple and white.

GAIL. Amazing, look at these. And they’re so soft, thank you.

MADDY. I heard it’s cold there.

GAIL. Yeah, it can be.

MADDY. I did it in the university colours.

GAIL. They’re perfect.

She tries them on.

How do I look?

MADDY smiles.

KATRINA. Purple isn’t everyone’s colour but

GAIL hugs MADDY.

GAIL. I’ll miss you.

Pause.

KATRINA. I didn’t make you anything.

GAIL. I didn’t make you anything either.

KATRINA. You wouldn’t want anything I’d made. And you won’t need anything to remind you of me since I’ll be visiting.

GAIL. Okay, let me settle in first.

KATRINA. Chill out, you’ve got till December.