Orca

Matt Grinter

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781780018379
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

An incisive, unflinching insight into what makes a community tolerate the unthinkable.

'One girl, against the happiness of the whole village. Can you not see it has to be done?'

Midsummer. The village must choose a new Daughter to sail with the fishing boats and bless the waters, keeping them safe from the roaming orcas for another year.

Fan hopes with all her heart to be the one they choose. But her older sister Maggie says she must never, never, go with the boats. Because something happened to Maggie out there. And no one will admit it.

Matt Grinter's play Orca was the winner of the 2016 Papatango New Writing Prize in association with Southwark Playhouse, London, where it premiered in 2016.

Scene One

Overlooking the harbour.

FAN sits on empty lobster pots, looking out eagerly. At her feet are jam jars and candles. She places the candles in the jam jars and ties a length of rope around the top of them, placing them along the quayside. MAGGIE is sat away; she is distant. She reads a book and is deep in thought.

FAN. My skin is hard and white and cold… (Waits.) My voice is a rumble deep and old… Maggie?… Maggie! My voice is a –

MAGGIE. You’re Dad’s boat.

FAN. Oh.

MAGGIE. You did that one last week.

FAN. It’s your turn then.

MAGGIE. Maybe later, Fan.

FAN. Come on.

MAGGIE. I’m busy.

FAN. You’re not busy, I’m busy, we’re both supposed to be making the lanterns. And I have to dance for the fishermen tonight, and I have a thousand things to do before I’m ready. The dress needs altering and I have to pick up my flower garland. (Beat.) Do you think if our da was The Father, The Father of the whole village, I’d still have to dance or would I just be crowned The Daughter without all the fuss.

MAGGIE. Our da could never be The Father. Only fishermen can become The Father.

FAN. I don’t mind, I want to dance.

MAGGIE. Can we talk about something else?

FAN. Not unless you have a riddle!

FAN grins mischievously at MAGGIE who rolls her eyes.

MAGGIE. My skin is rough and worn, my eyelids flutter, my thoughts are black on white –

FAN. It’s your book, it’s always your book. You’re not even trying.

MAGGIE looks up from her book.

MAGGIE. Alright… My belly swells, my skin she bellows, in time my bright-blue eyes turn to yellow…

FAN (screws up her nose, thinking hard). Is it a bruise, you did that one when I knocked my shins tripping over the workbench.

MAGGIE. It wasn’t a book though was it, now let me read.

FAN. But it’s not a new one, a hard one. If you aren’t going to help with the lanterns you could at least think of a new riddle.

MAGGIE. Alright, I’ll think, just give me some quiet please.

FAN thinks silently and her attention is drawn out to sea.

FAN. Can you see the boats coming back yet?

MAGGIE. You won’t see them from here.

FAN. I might.

FAN looks on, staring harder into the distance, she places a newly finished lantern on the ground.

We could run to the wall, I bet we’d see them there.

MAGGIE. Not today, Fan.

FAN. Then when? We could see them from the wall I’m sure.

MAGGIE. You have to finish the lamps and I have to watch over you. Watching for the boats won’t make the day go any faster, it’ll just mean we won’t get the lamps done and then we’ll both get it.

FAN reluctantly returns to her lamps.

FAN. They’re just fiddly is all, and I don’t see the point of the lamps anyway? Ma said it was to guide them home but the fishermen do that journey every day, in fog or rain or… They know their way back to the harbour…

MAGGIE. It used to be, they used to guide them home, now it’s for fun, for decoration. So fiddly or not you better get a move on with them or there won’t be any lights for the party later.

Beat.

FAN. It’d go quicker if you helped.

MAGGIE. I’m not helping.

FAN. Please, Maggie.

MAGGIE. I told you I’m not –

FAN. You don’t have to come tonight, it would just be the lamps.

MAGGIE. Listen, it’s not that I don’t want to help you –

FAN. Please?

MAGGIE. I tell you what. If you can finish them quickly we might have time for lunch on the harbour, then we can lay out the lamps along the wall and look out for the boats.

FAN smiles.

FAN. And when they come back from fishing we can start, we can start getting ready for the dance, we can pick up my garland and you’ll braid my hair?

MAGGIE. Don’t push it.

FAN. No one braids my hair as pretty as you, Da’s got fat fingers!

MAGGIE. We won’t have time to –

FAN. Please!

MAGGIE. Fan – (Beat.) don’t put all your hopes on being picked, the village… The Father… we’re not… they wouldn’t pick us, not now, not our family, I don’t want you getting upset.

She notices FAN’s crestfallen face.

Alright, little Fan, I’ll braid your hair, if you promise you’ll not mention the dance every time you draw a breath?

FAN is overjoyed.

FAN. Of course.

MAGGIE. Of course.

FAN grins and starts preparing the remaining lamps.

FAN. I want to look beautiful w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Characters
• Scene One
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information