The Upstairs Room

David K. O'Hara

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781472515100
• eBook ISBN: 9781472515117
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Really, we don't have to keep worrying about the time, Gordon. Let's just sit here together. Okay? For a little while. London is sinking, there's constant rain, and everyone is trying to escape. Gordon, an American writer, finds himself holed up in the attic room of a half-way house, awaiting forged papers and safe passage back to the States. He becomes trapped with Stella, a mysterious and seductive woman, and a teenage girl called Iris who, between them, take Gordon on an emotional journey through his past and into the present, forcing him to face the painful truth as to why he is there. David K. O'Hara's The Upstairs Room is a modern take on Sartre's play Huis Clos in which a man and two women find themselves confined together in a drawing room for eternity. First produced at the King's Head Theatre from 13 November to 8 December 2012 by Giddy Notion, The Upstairs Room is a compelling and well-written play.

Scene Four

Sound of rain.

The phone rings, once.

Blank light of the projector cast on the wall. The red couch has been overturned.

Stella is straddled over Gordon, whose legs stick out from behind the couch. What seems to be a struggle between the two of them turns out to be sex. There has been a minimum of disrobing.

Stella Don’t come, okay? (She pounds her fist on his chest.) Don’t come just yet.

Gordon Okay. Inside you, or?

The phone rings once: the signal.

Stella Move. Here.

They change position.

Gordon (breathless) Okay. Wait.

Stella Stop talking.

The phone now rings repeatedly.

Gordon There’s something wrong. That’s the –

Stella Stop. Don’t. Stay, just there.

Gordon Wait.

Stella No. I said. Keep … Yes, right.

Gordon Okay. Oh my God. Oh my God, I love you.

Ringing stops.

Stella Mother. Fuck. Yes.

Gordon You’re so fucking … Hang on, hang on, hang on. Oh my God.

Just as he slows, just as the sound of their breathing really synchronizes, Iris steps carefully into the room. She watches the couple for a moment, then checks behind the door. Carefully, she closes the door behind her.

Gordon and Stella resume, more aggressively.

Stella Yes. Yes. Yes, fucking. Yes.

Standing in the projector’s light, Iris pulls out a torch and raises it in their direction. Holds it.

Stella You’re going …. You’re going to kill me. You. Mother … Ffff.

Gordon Oh, Jesus, tell me. You love me. Tell me …

Stella Wait.

Iris lowers the torch. She turns away and looks around the room for a place to hide.

Gordon Sorry. Sorry. I just.

Stella No, it’s not right. This doesn’t feel right.

The phone begins to ring, sporadically. Last gasps.

Noticing the curtain, Iris rushes as quietly as possible over to it. She slips behind the curtain and hides.

Stella (sitting up) I can’t.

Gordon But. No. You were almost …

Long pause.

Stella (feeling around the floor for a missing stocking) I can’t. No.

Gordon But this is okay? Isn’t it? Just come here. Let me …

He places a hand on her shoulder.

Stella What am I doing? What are you … What do you think you’re doing?

Shrugging his hand away, she shakes her head no.

Gordon Hang on a second. What just … ? You don’t just … change like that.

She stands up, pulling her tights back on.

Stella Well, I do … I can.

She rushes over to turn on the lights as Gordon lays back down beside the overturned couch. The lights go on just in time to show him zipping himself up. Then Stella goes over to the coffee table and slams her palm down hard on the projector until it switches off.

Stella Don’t be such a little girl, Gordon. These things happen. There’s no need to sit here and sulk.

Gordon These things happen? Didn’t you hear the intercom? That, there, was an emergency. That’s what it means, you know. And we missed it.

Stella I really don’t see what bloody difference it makes. We’re in a terminal state of emergency.

Gordon sits up, just as Stella sits down on the green couch hugging her knees. He then uprights the red couch.

Gordon (straining) The point is, honey, that there is an emergency within. The barbarians are at the gate. There’s probably a whole mob of them, right now, downstairs, dressed in black, searching this whole building. Sniffing out impostors, absentees …

Stella Oh God. That old story. What does it matter, one way or another?

Gordon They’re out for vengeance, Stella.

Stella What for?

Gordon Well … for everything. I don’t know: all of this. Someone’s gotta take the blame. And they’re bound to find us. Of course they’ll find us. The buck stops here. At best, you’re gonna be back out on the streets again, alone … Or, worst case scenario: you and I both get cuffed and rubbergloved and taken down for questioning, and that’s before they decide whether or not to send us off to God knows where. C’mon, you-tell-me: where is it they send people like us, nowadays?

Stella Like us? … I don’t even know who you are, mister. ‘Listen, officer, please. I just woke up, locked in an upstairs room with this man … disguised in a false moustache …’

Gordon (under his breath, at ‘man’) Bitch.

Stella } ‘Maybe he’s just some kind of American spy, I dunno, sent here to poke and prod what’s left of the country. I’d start by checking his papers.’ Tell me, Gordon, who are they going to believe do you think, you or the girl who’s been locked up?

Gordon } (to himself, from ‘think’) I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have realised we’d end up here. Like this.

Pause.

I’m not the one holding the keys, here, Stella: the door’s right over there. Anyway, my papers are just fine. I’ve got the hard-headed wife, the crazy kid crying herself to sleep every night back in Pennsylvania. I’ve got obligations to get back to. I’ve got every excuse to leave … No, it’s you. It’s you who should be the one who’s worried, here.

Stella Yes – of one big gangbang, right?

Gordon Would you just … C’mon. Take seriously what I’m saying to you. For once. I’m trying desperately hard, now … I could. I could easily just …

Long pause.

Stella Everybody does, Gordon.

She hides her face against her knees.

Gordon Wait … Wait … No.

He steps over to her, his coat off, his shirt in disarray (buttoned badly) and with one of his own shoes now missing.

Gordon (kneeling down in front of her) We’ll go. Together. I can probably sneak us out and everything will be fine. There’s your place, and there’s Gary Hobsbaum’s. Whichever comes first. We can make do. Pool our resources. We can make a run for it. All right?

Stella looks up at him, passive now. She stares at his face. She turns to the bust, then back to Gordon, as if checking the resemblance. She lifts her hand and he rears back, for just a moment, afraid. Carefully, she takes her thumb and moves it across the place where the moustache was.

Stella (quietly) You’re all red.

Gordon (quietly) I am?

Stella (quietly) And you’re still so oblivious.

Gordon (quietly) Fine. Okay.

Stella (quietly) But …

Gordon But what? What’s-a-matter?

Stella I don’t … There’s this awful feeling I have that none of this is happening the way it’s supposed to and I’m not really here. I feel, so much, like I’m made of glass. Barely there, about to break.

Gordon I know it. I know the feeling well.

Stella God, I’m such a bloody mess.

Gordon Me too. Look at me: I’m in pieces, here, already. Look, I’m the oblivious good-for-nothing hack. So let’s just … Even if it’s … We can at least try, Stella …

As she speaks, Stella covers his mouth with the palm of her hand, then moves it, stroking his face.

Stella No. Please … I don’t want to go back out there. You don’t really know what … I’ve …

As Gordon wraps his arms around her legs, Stella looks up to the skylight.

Then a thud emanates fro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Premiere Cast Information
• Characters
• Prologue
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Theatre’s Programme Pages
• eCopyright