Silence

Filter Theatre, David Farr

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781408156568
• eBook ISBN: 9781408156575
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Left alone in an unfamiliar land, Kate struggles to silence the noises inside her head and begins to question her own sanity. In London, Michael listens carefully to a conversation recorded twenty years ago. Can he hear a third silent person on the tape? In a small Russian town, Irina searches desperately for her missing friend, piecing together fragments from his life. From urban noise to rural emptiness, through rationalism to spirituality, from Russia to the UK, Silence is the latest collaboration between the celebrated theatre company Filter and RSC Associate Director David Farr. Silence premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, on 12 May 2011, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Silence was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Hampstead Theatre, London, on 12th May 2011. The cast was as follows:

Michael	Oliver Dimsdale
Natasha	Christine Entwisle
Mary/Irina	Mariah Gale
Ivan	Paul Hamilton
Nikolas	Richard Katz
Peter	Jonjo O’Neill
Alexei	Ferdy Roberts
Kenneth/Josef	Patrick Romer
Kate	Katy Stephens

All other parts played by members of the Company.

Directed by David Farr
Designed by Jon Bausor
Lighting by Jon Clark
Music and Sound by Tim Phillips
Video by Douglas O’Connell

This text may differ slightly from the play as performed.

Characters

Kate

Nikolas

Alexei

Michael

Peter

Mary

Kenneth

BBC Producer

Sophie

Natasha

Ivan

Josef

Irina

BBC Sound Guy

Prologue

Irina, a Russian woman, thirty-one years old, posts an envelope in a small town in Russia, in 2010.

In London, Kate receives the same envelope in the post. Alone on stage, she turns to talk to us.

Kate I have a ringing in my ears. I’ve had it since I was a child. It’s a high-pitched whine, comes and goes, sometimes it makes me dizzy, sometimes it makes me sick. My brain imagines sound where there isn’t any. So quiet doesn’t help. Instead I have filled my life with more noise to get rid of it. Music, clubs, television, the chatter of people –

Enter Michael.

Michael Hey!

Kate – my husband’s voice. It’s ringing as I speak to you now. It was ringing when I made love to my husband Michael in our Battersea apartment this morning. It was ringing when the post arrived. It was ringing when I found this letter amongst the bills and bank statements. I recognised the writing on the envelope.

Out of the envelope she takes a tape.

Scene One

BATTERSEA INTO BERLIN

Kate and Michael in Battersea, London, 2010, Kate holding the tape which she has just received in the post.

Now, a memory: Kate, twenty-three years old, meets Nikolas, also early twenties, in a club in Berlin in 1991. They struggle to hear each other.

Nikolas Wo ist ihr name?

Kate What?

Nikolas Wo ist ihr name?

Kate I don’t speak German.

Nikolas (Russian accent) What do you speak?

Kate Are you Russian?

Nikolas (Russian accent) Yes!

Kate I can speak Russian!

Nikolas You speak Russian!

Kate Yes! My grandmother is from Russia. Why do you smell of fish?

Nikolas My friend and I drove twenty-seven hours in a car full of sturgeon to get here.

Kate What?

Nikolas Sturgeon. The only currency of choice between here and Moscow!

Kate Why are you in Berlin?

Nikolas Research trip! We have a club in Moscow. The Travel Bureau.

Kate The what?

Nikolas The Travel Bureau! We come here, we buy music, be part of the scene!

Kate ‘We’?

Nikolas Me and my friend. Alexei. He has to go to army in two weeks!

Kate To what?

Nikolas To army. National service! So this is his last party!

Kate We say in England ‘Last Supper’!

Nikolas ‘Last Supper’! I like it!

Kate Where is he?

Nikolas You’ll know him when you see him. He’s the only one here with a beard! The last beard in Russia!

He takes out a pill.

Nikolas You want one?

He holds out a pill. Kate has tinnitus moment.

Kate What?

Nikolas (offering her pill) Do you want one?

Kate How do I know you’re not the Stazi?!

Nikolas This is 1991! There haven’t been any Stazi in Berlin since the Wall came down.

Kate What? Speak up!

Nikolas No Stazi!

Kate takes the pill.

And the music fades up.

She gets an attack of the tinnitus.

In the chaos Kate sees Alexei on the dance floor, staring at her.

Her tinnitus disappears.

She stands there looking at him. They hear each other’s thoughts. Alexei You OK?

Kate Yeah.

Alexei You want to get out of here?

Kate Yeah.

Alexei is holding out two Sony Walkmans. Kate puts the tape in the Walkman. He puts his tape in his Walkman.

And we are in a sleepy early-morning Berlin U-Bahn carriage in 1991.

Alexei Ready?

Kate (excitedly, a whisper) No!

Alexei One. Two.

Kate kisses him.

Alexei Three!

And they both press ‘play’. Silence for a second and then the screech of Little Richard’s ‘Rip It Up’ roars into life.

And Kate and Alexei dance like mad people in the U-Bahn, surprising and pleasing the fellow travellers. Until, on the U-Bahn’s Tannoy:

Tannoy Alexanderplatz, Alexanderplatz …

Kate looks at her watch.

Kate Oh no. Oh God, I’ve got to get off!

Alexei Why?

Kate My flight’s from Tegel in an hour. I have to go.

The U-Bahn is stopping at the station. Kate gets out on to the platform.

Alexei Come to Moscow.

Pause.

Come to Moscow.

Kate I can’t.

Alexei Nikolas and I are driving back this afternoon. Berlin, Cracow, Lodz, Moscow.

Kate looks at him. The doors are about to close.

She leaps back on to the U-Bahn train. Kisses him.

Alexei disappears as she kisses him and Kate is left back in her kitchen in Battersea in 2010 with the tape in her hand. She puts the tape back in the envelope.

Michael is in the kitchen.

Michael What was that?

Kate Nothing.

Michael Come back to bed.

Kate …

Michael You can be an hour late.

Kate Says you, the workaholic.

Michael Come on.

They kiss.

Kate …

Michael What is it?

Kate I think I may have to go to Moscow.

Michael Moscow?

Kate Yeah.

Michael When

Kate Today. Now.

Michael Why?

Pause.

Kate Nokia.

Michael Nokia?

Kate I just got a message on my phone. They’re in Moscow anyway for some rebrand, and they’ve called a crisis meeting. Something about the summer festivals. It’s a 400k account.

Michael Can’t someone else go?

Kate I’d send Tina, but she can’t fly.

Michael Why not?

Kate mimes pregnancy.

Michael Oh yeah.

Kate It’ll only be until Monday.

Michael Always troubleshooting.

Kate Yeah.

Michael Just for a second I thought we were going to have a weeken...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Afterword: Lost in Russia
• Author Biography
• Imprint