The Acedian Pirates (NHB Modern Plays)

Jay Taylor

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780018331
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A play that challenges our understanding of mythology, and forces us to ask vital questions about military occupation.

"And we believe we're helping, we really do. But we've been 'helping' people for thousands of years and the divided land has stayed divided. We're still at war."

acedia: Noun, from Greek ak?dia, apathetic listlessness, a moral failing.

Jacob doesn't know why he's here. He's been at war for six years, but nobody will tell him why. The Moon is upstairs and he wants so desperately to talk to her, but they just won't let him. Will she be his salvation?

Jay Taylor's debut play, The Acedian Pirates premiered at Theatre503, London, in October 2016.

'A writer of real promise' Jeremy Herrin

'Very funny and very powerful' Hilary Mantel

ACT ONE

Scene One

Choral music. Sombre and ominous.

A single light picks out a woman stood centre stage. She is HELEN.

HELEN’s body is bruised and bloodied, particularly around her wrists and ankles, and she has scratch marks all over her.

A group of men walk slowly on to the stage and stand observing HELEN with an almost religious devotion.

HELEN. Tell me a story.

Beat.

Tell me. A story.

Beat.

No? Then I’ll tell you mine.

Beat.

They came from across the sea when I was but a little girl; one who would sit and play and tangle her hair in wreaths of ringlets. They came with gifts. They came with smiles. They came with HIM.

Beat.

I felt his cold eyes upon me. My father knew. No one knows an evil man’s mind better than another evil man. He poisoned everyone with his words. I was intended for another, but I knew that he would make me his. It was simply a matter of time.

Beat.

I was dreaming when they came for me, dreaming that I had angel wings, that I could fly far and away and above and up. My dreams took me far above their pitched tents and battlements, away from him and his men of clutch, of fist; men of angry promises.

Beat.

But in the darkness they came and I was awakened, stolen and like a wretched animal, dragged through the desert, not screaming; silent. Or rather, screaming in silence and when finally we reached this place, his face was no surprise to me.

Beat.

But soon another shall come. And so I wait. And in moments of peace, precious and rare that they are, I think of days gone by. Of a little girl who sits and plays and tangles her hair in wreaths of ringlets and dreams of having angel wings. She isn’t anyone, but she is everything. Everything to men of nothing.

The music fractures and distorts; it becomes heavy, rhythmic, militaristic.

The music grows and incorporates a soundscape of shouts, screaming, panic, terror, war.

Blackout.

Scene Two

A lighthouse.

The sound of the ocean.

The music cuts out and lights snap up on two mendressed in military attire.

JACOB paces, a book in his hand, smokingheavily.

IVAN sits, drinking.

Muffled noise, like stifled cries, come fromabove them.

They both look up.

A pause.

JACOB. You gonna do something?

IVAN. Like what?

The men look at each other.

JACOB. I’ll call them again.

IVAN. There’s no word.

JACOB. You’re sure?

IVAN. Has the phone rung since the last time I checked?

JACOB. No.

IVAN. Well, there you have it then.

JACOB. Right.

IVAN. Why don’t you sit down.

JACOB. Why are you so obsessed with sitting down?

IVAN. I’m hardly ‘obsessed’.

JACOB. You never used to be a sitting-down type...