House + Amongst the Reeds: two plays

Somalia Seaton, Chinonyerem Odimba

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780018126
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Two explosive plays about the need to be seen.

Somalia Seaton's House is a play about family, culture clash, memory and truth. When Pat returns to her childhood home after a five-year absence, she's ready to forgive her mother for the neglect she suffered at her hands, but Mama isn't ready to let the demons back into her home.

In Chino Odimba's Amongst the Reeds, two friends scratch out a living on the margins of society. Oni and Gillian have made their home in a disused office block, finding ever more precarious ways to stay hidden from the authorities. But now Gillian is heavily pregnant, and visibility might be the only way to give her baby a chance.

Commissioned by Clean Break and produced in association with the Yard Theatre, London, House + Amongst the Reeds premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, before transferring to The Yard.

Acclaimed theatre company Clean Break produces ground-breaking plays with women writers and actors at the heart of its work. Founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who needed urgently to tell their stories through theatre, the company today has an independent education programme delivering theatre opportunities to women offenders and women at risk, in custodial and community settings.

HOUSE

Somalia Seaton

Characters

PATRICIA, mid- to late thirties

JEMIMA, late twenties

MAMA, fifties

Note on Text

/ indicates the point at which the next speaker interrupts

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

Scene One

We hear female voices singing, we don’t know where they are yet.

Each of them in a different space and time.

Room is dark.

Voices sing.

In tandem.

VOICES Glory glory glory!
You are my
glory glory glory. You are my father father father,
you fill me with
Your mighty mighty spirit,
I am, forever thankful for your love,
you lift me high, glory glory glory,
I’m thankful for
Your power and your mercy,
I’ll never forget you heavenly father,
I am not worthy of your mercy…

JEMIMA arrives in her living room. She is unsettled, she attempts to tidy. She sits. She stands. She fusses.

The song continues.

PATRICIA approaches the microphone. She drags it under the table with her, making sure no one has seen where she hides.

As she does, we hear a WOMAN’s voice in prayer, almost inaudible, the voice speaks in tongues underneath PATRICIA’s voice.

All else is in darkness.

PATRICIA It’s me.

Hey little one.

Didn’t get much sleep last night. You wouldn’t settle down. Put you on my chest not once but maybe twice. They say skin to skin is the best, but I did that, not once but maybe twice. No joy.

Last night, in between tears and midnight screams I forgot how much my heart sings when I hear you breathe.

How the smell of your breath makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand tall with ease, how if I listen really carefully, I hear your name in every melody.

I wanna scoop you up and spin you round, top you up with love till you overflow, place you on a star and watch you glide through our galaxy.

Because you deserve, the stars, and the moon and all in between, you deserve the world little one, I’ll give you the stars and the moon and all in between. You are my moon and my stars and all in between, the banoffee to my pie.

(Laughs.) Apple of my eye… Am I embarrassing you?

Am I?

Good!

A different space.

Lights up on MAMA.

MAMA (Sings.) Glory glory glory!
You are my
Glory glory glory. You are my father father father,
you fill me with
Your mighty mighty spirit,
I am, forever thankful for your love,
You lift me high, glory glory glory,
I’m thankful for
Your power and your mercy,
I’ll never forget you heavenly father,
I am not worthy of your mercy…

PATRICIA Little one. Little one come on little one wake up, back on my chest little one. Come back. Come on. Come back little one.

Lights down on PATRICIA.

MAMA’s singing continues.

Scene Two

MAMA’s house.

An open-plan kitchen/living room. Perfectly chaotic. It is reminiscent of ‘immigrant done good’. Plastic on chairs, plastic tablecloths, endless stacks of papers and books, mismatched ornaments, un-hung family pictures, the coffee table has receipts and newspapers and crocheted mats. Jesus is here too, in every corner we are reminded of His face. A large framed portrait of Him hangs over the dining table.

JEMIMA I wasn’t sure if you’d c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Introduction
• House
• Amongst the Reeds
• About the Authors
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information