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THE FAITH MACHINE
‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards’
Søren Kierkegaard
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Characters
in order of speaking
TOM, ages from twenty-four to thirty-seven during the play, American
SOPHIE, ages from twenty-two to thirty-four during the play, English
EDWARD, in his seventies, English
PATRICK, in his forties, Black Kenyan
TATYANA, in her thirties or forties, Russian
SEBASTIAN, in his forties, Chilean
LAWRENCE, ages from thirties to forties, Black British
ANNIE, in her thirties, American
AGATHA, seventeen
PATRICK and LAWRENCE are to be played by the same actor.
Bold letters in the Russian pronunciation indicate stress.
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ACT ONE
Scene One
2001
New York radio: something about the weather, it being a sunny September morning, maybe a traffic update.
Lights up:
The bedroom of TOM’s apartment in downtown Manhattan. A slick, expensive place, sparsely but tastefully furnished – the home of a young, successful man.
Early morning. TOM is still in his dressing gown but gets dressed during the scene. SOPHIE is half-dressed. She is putting things into a suitcase. She packs throughout the scene.
TOM. So what are you asking me to do?
She doesn’t answer.
Because I have a feeling that if you finish packing that bag – will you please stop, just put that down, stop packing that bag, will you, GIVE ME THAT AT LEAST, put the fucking – whatever that is – put it down.
She stops packing.
Thank you. That if you finish packing that bag, that if you leave New York this afternoon, if you go back to London, then fuck me I don’t know where that leaves us, but I don’t know –
SOPHIE. I need to think.
TOM. – if we can ever pick things up is what I’m saying, resume things, because if you really want me to be honest here –
SOPHIE. You know I do.
TOM. – well, to be honest I feel judged, vilified in some way, frowned upon, Jesus, yes, just continuously judged –
SOPHIE. By me?
She resumes packing her bag.
TOM. – and I’m sorry I’m not Jesus or Mahatma Gandhi or fuck knows who you want me to be –
SOPHIE. I want you to be you.
TOM. – but the fact is, Sophie, this is who I am, and you just have to accept that: a good man who happens to work in a field that you – fuck me, I don’t know, disapprove of – a good man who just happens to work in advertising.
SOPHIE. I know you work in advertising, Tom, I know how things evolved –
TOM. It’s what I do.
SOPHIE. – to what they are, and I know that the world needs to keep turning.
TOM. Oh, you do?
SOPHIE. Buying, selling, supply, demand.
TOM. And it’s advertising that helped us move into this apartment –
SOPHIE. I liked Brooklyn.
TOM. – and that happily funded your postgraduate degree at Columbia.
SOPHIE. My inheritance could have paid for that.
TOM. It’s all you fucking have.
SOPHIE. But there’s a line, Tom. That’s all. A line.
TOM. A line?
SOPHIE. Let’s call it the Fletcher line.
TOM. Jesus.
Pause.
SOPHIE. Why did you take the Fletcher contract, Tom?
TOM. Because it’s a means to an end.
SOPHIE. Why did you chase it?
TOM. Because it opens doors. Because another two contracts like it and I can stop working. And then fuck knows, maybe we can save the world –
SOPHIE. You’re believing your own sound bites.
TOM. Build a fucking orphanage in Kenya, Vietnam.
SOPHIE. ‘It’s a means to an end.’
TOM. Fucking Mozambique.
SOPHIE. Jesus, Tom.
TOM. I mean, I have been working so fucking hard –
SOPHIE. What for?
TOM. Joe Ikeman called me yesterday and said, ‘It’s unheard of.’
SOPHIE. I’m sure it is.
TOM. He said, ‘For someone who’s been writing copy for less than three years to head the Fletcher account is amazing. It’s history, advertising history.’
SOPHIE. ‘The Power to Heal’. It’s pithy, I’ll give you that. No wonder they liked your pitch, you should be proud.
TOM. Well, fuck you, Sophie, I am proud and you know I too wish we lived in some idyllic, some, no, what’s the word, Utopian world, yes, if we lived in a fucking Utopia then I would be earning a hell of a lot of money –
SOPHIE. We don’t need a lot.
TOM. – for writing confessional novels about dysfunctional childhoods, but I’m afraid we don’t, we live in the real world –
SOPHIE. Is that what it’s called?
TOM. – and the real word is harsh, and cruel and full of compromise.
SOPHIE. Leave the ad-speak at work, I beg you. Let’s keep something untouched.
Pause. EDWARD walks into the room: they cannot see him.
TOM. And this is all about your father, by the way.
SOPHIE. No, it isn’t.
TOM. And I keep saying to myself it’s part of the mourning process, one of the phases, you know, what do they say, the seven stages of mourning –
SOPHIE. Five.
TOM. So this is maybe stage five because ever since he died he’s like, I don’t know like, he’s in this bedroom with us –
SOPHIE. The bedroom?
TOM. And I can understand it, I mean, the man was exceptional in every possible way, visionary and courageous and profound –
SOPHIE. He was.
EDWARD. Thank you, darling.
TOM. But having him in our bedroom twenty-four-seven isn’t exactly conducive to a healthy relationship.
SOPHIE. Are you saying I can’t think for myself?
EDWARD....
