The Nest (NHB Modern Plays)

Franz Xaver Kroetz

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780018256
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre européen

Parents-to-be Kurt and Martha just want the best for their baby. They're not afraid of hard work – the latest buggy doesn't come cheap. But when Kurt's boss offers him a chance to make some easy money with a mysterious side job, his rashness catches up with him.

A fable about the moral and environmental cost of our materialistic nesting instincts, Conor McPherson's powerful new version of Franz Xaver Kroetz's Das Nest premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in 2016 and the Young Vic, London, directed by Ian Rickson.

ACT ONE

Scene One

Late evening in the apartment. On the sofa, KURT lies asleep in the flickering light of the television. The volume is turned off. MARTHA sits at a table with her work in front of her. She holds a receiver to her ear as she speaks on the phone.

MARTHA. Good evening. May I speak to the head of the household please? Hello, I’m calling on behalf of Incorporated Research Group Limited, conducting research into banking practice and preferences in the…

She is cut off. She makes a note, looks at the next number on her list, dials and checks her watch, making a note.

Good evening. May I speak to the head of the household please? Thank you. (Waits.) Hello, I’m calling on behalf of Incorporated Research Group Limited, conducting market research into banking practice and preferences in your area, with whom am I speaking please? Yes, it’s one minute to nine o’clock. (Pause.) We call up till nine o’clock. Is there a time that would be more convenient? The questionnaire takes seven minutes. I see. Well I’m sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you, too.

She hangs up. She sits looking at the table disconsolately for a moment. KURT talks to someone in his sleep. She looks over at him. She gets up. She is visibly pregnant. Her back is sore. She leans on a chair, stretching to get some relief. She goes over to the couch and looks down at KURT, willing him to wake up. She picks up the TV remote control and presses the volume button. A voice suddenly explodes from the TV: ‘As a further ten thousand strikers descended upon the factory the police were ordered to make their first baton charge.’ KURT sits up, wondering where he is. MARTHA laughs andswitches the TV off.

KURT. I was watching that!

MARTHA. You’ve been asleep for half an hour!

KURT. What happened to the guy in the end?

MARTHA. I don’t know. I was working.

KURT. Well, I’ll tell you. That was, without question, the worst depiction of a lorry driver yet seen on TV – and that’s saying something!

MARTHA is tidying away their dinner plates.

MARTHA. Well in fairness he was hardly driving a lorry, Kurt. He had a little van.

KURT. Well, this is it – it’s a whole other story once you get a HGV licence. I mean it’s a whole other world. Nobody realises.

MARTHA. He looked a bit like you though, didn’t he?

KURT. What?!

MARTHA. Except for his ears.

KURT. His ears were a bleeding joke, man! Jaysus, what a clown! If my wife told me she wasn’t gonna have my baby I’d tell her, ‘Yes you bleeding well are!’

MARTHA. Charming!

KURT. He was afraid of his own fucking baby! (Rubs his face.) God, I keep falling asleep.

MARTHA. Get into bed.

KURT. Yeah. You finished here?

MARTHA. Yeah.

KURT starts to convert their sofa into a bed. MARTHA stands leaning against the sink, staring into space.

KURT. If that moron did half the overtime I do… What happened to him in the end? (Pause.) Are you alright?

MARTHA. What? (Short pause.) Yeah.

KURT. How many did you do?

MARTHA. Uh! One old woman took the questionnaire, and then told me she had no bank account! Then three ‘no thank you’s and it was nine o’clock.

KURT. What a waste. How many is that today?

MARTHA. Thirty-eight.

KURT. That’s not bad, though.

MARTHA. Your woman, Nina, the supervisor says the average is a hundred a day.

KURT (as though this is a reasonable target). Ten an hour.

MARTHA. Yeah.

KURT. Listen – forty euros is not nothing.

MARTHA. The booklet says people can make up to two hundred.

KURT. You’re not even supposed to be working!

MARTHA. It’s just talking on the phone.

KURT. You’ll get there. You’ll be breaking t...