Wish List E-Book

Katherine Soper

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

A sensitive, delicate and powerful play that asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you. 'I dreamt about this last night. I dreamt that I was packing boxes in boxes in boxes.' Tamsin packs boxes in a warehouse, on the clock, to a target, with a zero-hour contract. Her brother Dean is housebound, working to obsessive-compulsive rituals of his own. When Dean is declared fit for work, their benefits are cut. There are phone calls to make, appeals to lodge and endless forms to fill in. Tamsin must pack faster, work harder, and fight to get the support she and her brother so desperately need. Katherine Soper's play Wish List won the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and was co-produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and the Royal Court Theatre, London. It premiered at the Royal Exchange in September 2016 and the Royal Court in January 2017, and Katherine Soper was named Best Writer in the 2017 Stage Debut Awards. 'The play has such eloquence, such quiet craft, such dignity and such compassion' Sir Nicholas Hytner

Leseprobe

Katherine Soper

WISH LIST

NICK HERN BOOKSLondonwww.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Acknowledgements

Epigraph

Characters

Wish List

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Wish List won the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. It was co-produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre and first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 24 September 2016. The production transferred to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London, on 10 January 2017. The cast was as follows:

TAMSIN CARMODY

Erin Doherty

DEAN CARMODY

Joseph Quinn

THE LEAD

Aleksandar Mikic

LUKE MBURU

Shaquille Ali-Yebuah

Director

Matthew Xia

Designer

Ana Inés Jabares-Pita

Lighting Designer

Ciarán Cunningham

Composer and Sound Designer

Giles Thomas

Casting Director

Sophie Parrott CDG

Movement Director

Angela Gasparetto

Assistant Director

Monique Touko

Stage Manager

Lynsey Fraser

Deputy Stage Manager

Caoimhe Regan

Acknowledgements

Enormous thanks must go to everyone at the Royal Exchange, Bruntwood, and the readers, administrators, and judges of the Bruntwood Prize. Thank you for seeing something in my work.

Thanks also to:

Melissa Dunne. Davina Moss. Salome Wagaine. Everyone at Central, especially Sarah Grochala for suggesting I write this idea instead of my other one. The staff of the much-missed Nomad Books café, where the 2014 version was written. Every single member of my extended Penhaligon’s family. Citizens Advice and Turn2us for their tireless work and resources. The Howe family. Iliyana Todorova and Lulu Raczka for so much writerly support and reassurance. Nick Hern Books. Jonathan Kinnersley. The brilliant actors who helped workshop the script: Katie West, Jamie Samuel, Ivanno Jeremiah, and Michael Peavoy. The equally brilliant actors who made the play happen: Erin Doherty, Joseph Quinn, Shaquille Ali-Yebuah, and Aleksandar Mikic.

The wonderful Matthew Xia and Suzanne Bell.

Phil, who read this more times than was probably healthy.

Finally, thanks to my parents, and to my brother.

K.S.

‘From the gods who sit in grandeurgrace comes somehow violent.’

Aeschylus

Characters

DEAN CARMODY, seventeen

TAMSIN CARMODY, nineteen

THE LEAD, thirty-eight

LUKE MBURU, sixteen

Note on Play

The staging of this play is open to interpretation – the stage directions are intended to evoke the literal world of the characters, but do not demand a literal staging.

Scene One

A flat in Oldbrook, Milton Keynes. August.

DEAN is in the bathroom, applying gel to his hair. He does it very precisely and meticulously, applying far more than an average amount and twisting his hair into spikes. It should not be a hairstyle that seems familiar or attractive.

TAMSIN knocks on the door, deliberately gently.

TAMSIN. Hey.

Sorry about earlier.

Do you want any help?

I’m just gonna be in my room, so let me know.

She retreats to her own room.

The loud ringing of a phone on the top of the loo startles DEAN, and breaks his concentration. He looks at it as though it might attack him. He breathes in and out a few times.

He gingerly picks it up and tries, mentally, to prepare himself to answer, but puts it back down almost the moment he lifts it to his ear.

He returns to the sink.

TAMSIN rushes into the room and picks it up for him.

Hello, Carmody residence?

No, this is Tamsin. I should be on the –

Yeah.

He’s here but you can talk to me.

She notices DEAN