Mongrel Island

Ed Harris

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781408158708
• eBook ISBN: 9781408158692
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Marie is losing herself in her grey office existence, trapped by endless piles of paperwork and the same people saying the same things every single day. But as she is forced to work later and later into the night, she discovers a deeply strange twilight world where a new possibility for rescuing her sanity is illuminated by the fluorescent office lights. Commissioned by Soho Theatre and written by up-and-coming writer Ed Harris, Mongrel Island explores the mind and memory, offering a perspective of how the workplace can strip away our humanity. Combining madcap, surreal humour with an indictment of the corporate world's subjugation of individualism, Mongrel Island is a bittersweet, touching and darkly humourous play.

Scene One

The sodium office lights crackle on.

Daytime. Office hours. The office is uninspiring to the point of being maddening. One window. Three desks. One door, hall; and one door, Honey’s office/partitioned area, with desk. Only Joe and Elvis are working at their desks; time has moved very slowly for them, for a very long time. There are processing carers’ timesheets. This involves opening a seemingly endless load of envelopes, taking out the duplicate sheets, separating them, signing one off, filing separately, and logging the information on to an online system. Marie enters. They look up. She goes to her seat. They get back to their work. Tap tap tap.

Marie They’ve run out of stuff in the thing.

Only Joe glances up, and then gets back to his work.

Only Joe What you say?

Marie I don’t think I said anything, did I? (She goes to desk, sits. Stares at workload. Marie becomes distracted.) Did I? (Stares blankly.) Oh. Stuff. In the thing. They’ve run out.

Only Joe (Glances up at her.)

Tap tap tap.

Marie (Picks up timesheet. Distracted.) Yeah. What’s it called?

Only Joe (Sits back and watches her.)

Marie … Thing. (New subject. To herself.) Tits … This form’s missing one of its reference numbers.

Only Joe works.

Marie Only Joe.

Only Joe Make it up.

Marie (Pause.) I can’t make it up.

Only Joe Make it up.

Marie I’ll ask Honey.

Only Joe Honey? (Pause.) Make it up. They get paid either way.

Marie Do they?

Only Joe Probably.

Tap tap tap.

Marie I can’t come out of the screen.

Only Joe Hm?

Marie The screen. I can’t come out of the screen.

Only Joe Marie? I’m trying to work. I thought you went out for water?

Marie I did … That’s what I was saying. The thing’s run out of stuff.

Only Joe The …

Marie Water-cooler’s.

Only Joe Run out of …

Marie … What?

Only Joe What’s the water-cooler run out of … ?

Marie Water.

Only Joe Beautiful, isn’t it? The language of Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Marie And someone’s stolen my cup.

Tap tap tap. Only Joe doesn’t work, he watches Marie.

Only Joe I had a really good wank over you this morning.

Marie (Routinely.) No you didn’t.

Only Joe I did. It was good, actually.

Marie (Routinely.) No you didn’t.

Only Joe You were disgusting.

Marie (Routinely.) No I wasn’t.

Only Joe I once knew a girl who drank a little bit of her own piss every day. And when she had athlete’s foot, she pissed on her foot in the shower – and apparently it worked.

(No reaction.)

I wouldn’t drink piss, personally. Would you? Would you drink piss, personally?

Marie Not personally, no.

Only Joe No. (Beat.) Elvis? Elvis. Elvis? (Pause.) Elvis? Excuse me, Elvis? Elvis?

Elvis Urr-hurr-huh.

Only Joe Would you drink piss personally, Elvis?

Marie Leave him alone.

Only Joe I’ll leave him alone when he’s dead.

Tap tap tap.

Only Joe Is it time for the un-ber-fucking-lievable?

Marie Hm?

Only Joe Is it time for the un-ber-fucking-lievable?

Marie I’m not making it. It’s not my turn.

Only Joe (Of Elvis.) He’ll make it. (Looks at watch.) God I’m bored. Talk to me, Elvis. How are you? How are you, mate? Do anything last night? Watch any telly?

Elvis (Pause.) Urr-hurr-huh.

Only Joe Brilliant. (Stares at him.)

Elvis (Nervous.) Urr-hurr-huh.

Only Joe Eat any food? No? Nothing?

Elvis Why?

Only Joe Go on.

Elvis Worked on my bike.

Only Joe Course you did.

Elvis And dad made corn beef hash.

Only Joe Course he did.

Elvis But do you want to know what happened then?

Only Joe I’m on the edge of my seat.

Elvis After we ate and after dad went up the Irish’s for a pint?

Elvis takes a calendar out of his bag and sets it up on his desk.

Marie (Of the calendar.) She’s very pretty.

Elvis She’s Crystal. She did a talk, and a demonstration of her skills, like standard block chopping and springboard chopping … And it was her idea to make a calendar. Which is raising money for charity, as well as awareness of the Association. The Lumberjills’ Association. Like Lumberjacks but they’re women.

Marie Lumberjills. Hence the chainsaw.

Only Joe You know what’ll happen.

Elvis She signed it.

Marie She’s got lovely writing.

Only Joe Don’t humour him. Will Honey humour him? What do you think, Elvis, or does she hate you?

Marie She doesn’t hate him.

Only Joe Not ‘in particular’.

Elvis There were others too, but Crystal’s nicest. (Sets up calendar on desk.) She signed it.

Tap tap tap.

Marie I had this dream last night and I was under Honey’s desk and

Only Joe Please don’t.

Marie What?

Only Joe Not dreams.

Tap tap tap.

Marie I’m going to take me shoes off, they’re killing.

Only Joe (Warning.) Don’t even pretend.

Marie What? I’m not.

Only Joe And face the wrath.

9.00am. Honey enters.

Honey Morning, all.

All (Mumbles of Good morning, Honey.)

Honey Good. Elvis. Please.

Elvis In front of us are envelopes that contain three duplicate copies of careworkers’ timesheets. The pink sheet, serial number between A2 and B8, are put in the service users’ archive on the third floor —

Honey Stop. Only Joe.

Only Joe A yellow sheet with a serial number between C4 and C6 is kept for our own files, and logged on to the online system. If we find a white sheet —

Honey We must:

Marie Keep it for fourteen working days for the careworker to claim it for his or her personal records.

Only Joe After the period of fourteen days —

Honey Abigail.

Marie The white sheet, along with the yellow sheet we’ve logged on to the online system are destroyed.

Honey Wait. It’s not Abigail, is it?

Marie It’s Marie.

Honey (Makes a note of this.) Continue.

Marie Erm. Destroy.

Honey What?

Marie Everything.

Honey Elvis.

Elvis Commitment.

Honey And.

Elvis We need commitment, not just involvement.

Honey Only Joe.

Only ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Cast list
• Acknowledgements
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• Scene Nine
• Scene Ten
• Scene Eleven
• Scene Twelve
• Scene Thirteen
• Postscript
• Author’s Note
• Footnote
• Imprint