Run

Stephen Laughton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781780018744
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

'I fall.
And run.
I fall.
With such sheer force that I hurtle through space…'

Yonni is a seventeen-year-old gay Jewish kid. It's the last day of term and he's avoiding everything. The only person he wants to be around, think about, be about... is Adam.

And as his night unfolds and falls into chaos – some of it real, some of it not – Yonni pulls us into his world. A world filled with school riots, first loves, beached whales, political demonstrations, sunshine, cinema, sex and rebellion.

Set over one unforgettable summer and encompassing all of space and time, Stephen Laughton's one-man play Run explores what it means to love, to lose and how to grow from a boy into a man. First produced at VAULT Festival 2016, the play transferred to The Bunker in March 2017, after a national tour.

It’s chaos in the kitchen.

Yelling. Clatter… shit boiling over.

Washing
Spinning…

A dog barking. We don’t even have a dog.

Like it’s brown.
About yay big.
Yappy.
Keeps looking at me.

I’m worried it’s hungry.

But it’s mainly jumping around my little brother Jesse, who’s grinning like a moron and mirroring the stupid thing.

And it’s the happiest I’ve seen him in months.
Which I guess is good.

And Devorah, my mother, pipes up from her prep every now and then.
Kinda absently telling them to shut up.

I lean down, rub the dog’s head, kind of warily.

Devorah proffers a hi love, asks about the day
There’s something too kind in her smile…

And the dog stares back.
With that look…
Head to one side… cocked…
It looks cute but basically means I wanna eat ya.

We’re not allowed pets cos of my allergies apparently, and I can’t imagine a world where Devorah would even allow it in her kitchen. I’m not sure it’s kosher enough.

And it’s adding to this sense of chaos and because tensions already feel high today, and I’ve got this slow creeping anxiety tightening across my chest, I’m mainly too scared to ask why it’s here…

Jesse’s having fun though.
Which from an IQ standpoint makes sense. And it’s nice the way my little bro seriously just found himself a soulmate. He’s making some kind of Scooby Dooby ‘yes he is’ kind of noise at it. And basically looks a bit ‘smesh’.

It’s Friday.

March.

About 4 p.m.

The weekly pre-Shabbat panic is officially in full swing. Devorah is frantically cracking individual eggs into a small clear glass. She holds it up to the light.Scans to the right, spins to the left. Lowers the glass to see it from above and then lifts back up to check below.

Satisfied with her inspection she tips the egg into her left hand.
And oozes the yolk back to her right.
Then left.
To her right.
And back…

The white of the egg drip-dripping into the bowl below.

She cracks and repeats.

Cracks.
And repeats.

Orders me to chop carrots and I begrudgingly begin.
Soon working out that Jesse’s in shit again.

Devorah’s berating him over this week’s misdemeanours – including the dog… Knew it. And something about detention… again… and his general backchatting-attitude shit.

And there’s barking and jumping and chopping and cracking and Jesse’s jigging about the place.And answering back. Thinking it’s all a bit funny.

And it builds and it builds and it builds and it –
Stop.

I fucking hate carrots.
Seriously like proper repulsed.
And she knows it.

They look gross. Orange actually offends me. And you cannot… seriously cannot… boil a carrot without it festering everything it touches with its limpity carroty bollocks.
They ruin.
Everything.

No one wants to eat your irritation, my darling…
That sweet sweet smile again.

Well don’t make me chop the fucking carrots then.
Don’t say that.
Obvs.

Just tut, and…

Breathe.

And on my in-breath Devorah lets out an exasperated oy as she empties another eggy glass into the waste-disposal-unit thing…

Blood spot.
On the yolk.

She grabs a fresh glass. Stacking up the tainted, sullied glasses next to the sink.

And as she places it, the dog knocks into her and she lets rip at Jesse. She won’t tell him again. Get that thing out of the kitchen.

And then back to beating the shit out of the egg whites.

Reuben, my father, walks in. He drops a bottle of Kiddush wine on the counter.

Grunts.

Leaves. He’s fun like that.

Devorah doesn’t notice.
I don’t think she notices him at all any more.
It’s like they somehow just exist in spite of each other these days.

In apsis. Apsides.
Aphelion.
Apart.

I can’t remember when I last saw them talk.

Whites now mixed I can’t help but pick up the rhythm… I can feel it in my chest as she slaps in the matzo and starts forming the dumplings.
I put the knife down.
I need to just –

Breathe.

It’s Bedlam.

About one forty-five.

Another Friday, shit… nearly two years ago now and lunch is nearly done.
Teachers sweep in periphery, and we’re all in huddles…

It’s muck-up day today…
And the Year 11s, me and mine, get to bolt after next period…

Study leave.

Or as we like to call it ‘getting stoned with your mates all week then fully cramming with the geeky kids you’ve hung shit on for the last four years the night of your modular science exam’.

Then passing.

And there’s buzzing and manoeuvring and rowdiness in the air.

The kids in my year all excited ’bout egg and flour and maybe the odd firework. Some kid trying to convince us to catapult chickens at the school walls.

I hope they’re kosher.

And in the rabble I spot you.

Smiling, cool, somewhat removed…

Soaking it up…

Like, the day after we met, like properly… At that bus stop…

And you’re standing there….

Like. Grinning…
Like that.

Hot.

Blue-green eyes.
Messy hair. Cute smile.

You’re fair.
Not like me.
Intellectual. Less like me.
A nice Ashkenazi boy.

You’re deep. Literal… Something of the artist…
Bit more like me…

Watching it all unfo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Epigraph
• Characters
• Run
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information