Shuck 'n' Jive

Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong, Simone Ibbett-Brown

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781786829429
• eBook ISBN: 9781786829412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Opera singer Simone very quickly discovers that London is not the BNP-free utopia she'd always dreamed of. Meanwhile, actress Cassi battles it out for the illustrious roles of 'Sassy Friend', 'Spunky Slave' and 'Third Crack Whore From The Left' at every audition. Desperate to be seen as they are, not as the colour of their skin, they decide to take control and write their own story. With songs and searing honesty, Shuck 'n' Jive is the laugh-out-loud story of two friends trying to break out of racist typecasting and create a story for themselves.

Part One

ZERO

Music is playing.

The audience enter.

ONE

SIMONE: Hello.

CASSI: Heya.

SIMONE: Hi.

…

I’m Simone, I’m a vegan, I was born and raised in East Anglia.

CASSI: I’m Cassi, I grew up in South London watching Lizzie the puppet on Playdays and it’s easier to say I’m from South London, but I’m actually from Croydon and the side of Croydon that’s basically Surrey so not London at all really I guess…

BOTH: We are best friends.

They begin to dance or enact some choreographed movement in time and in keeping stylistically with the music. Like arm-only yoga, or Solange’s bandmates. The movements are universal but the routine is unique to them.

We love music.

…

And we love the theatre:

CASSI: its power to move

SIMONE: and to teach

CASSI: to change a mind,

SIMONE: open a heart,

CASSI: eye,

SIMONE: mouth,

CASSI: pocket,

SIMONE: to communicate

CASSI: live*

SIMONE: something to a group of people who may never have met each other,

CASSI: sat next to each other,

SIMONE: treat** each other like human beings with minds and feelings just like them –

CASSI: another qualia-soaked, newly behoped –

SIMONE: by something dope

CASSI: like theatre

SIMONE: or music;

CASSI: if it hadn’t been for theatre

SIMONE: or iPlayer

CASSI: or Netflix

SIMONE: or music

BOTH: or something that doesn’t know what it is

…

like this.

…

We spend our lives jiving

CASSI: metaphorically

SIMONE: ’cause this is actually quite tiring.

CASSI: We travel up and down the city,

SIMONE: county,

CASSI: sovereign state

SIMONE: and nation

CASSI: singing, dancing, acting,

SIMONE: hoping to put something either fun or good into the world

CASSI: the only way we know how

SIMONE: the best way we know how.

CASSI: We always have a story

SIMONE: so if you don’t lose patience with our fumbling around

CASSI: we’ll come up singing for you, even when we’re down.

SIMONE: Oh, and we text each other a lot.

TWO

They stop dancing, or dance more, and a phone pings with every text that comes through.

SIMONE: About work:

CASSI: Just got an audition through for the role of ‘God’ – not sure it’s my casting but the script is funny.

About where we are:

SIMONE: Waiting for an Uber with thirty kilograms of pebbles, a wheelie bed and a packet of chips.

About people:

CASSI: My dad and brother just spent the last half hour discussing which of them would have got gunged on Get Your Own Back.

SIMONE: Well, the first thing we need to know is who has the greater command of late ’90s general knowle–

CASSI: About music and theatre and nothing at all:

SIMONE: OMG can you send me a tune – I’ve had this bit in my head from Makropulos Case – it’s this supernatural backstage musical murder mystery thriller – actually don’t, I love it.

CASSI: Yas.

OMG Fairfield Halls has reopened!

SIMONE:

CASSI: It’s the theatre in Croydon. We should go.

SIMONE: YASSSSSS.

OMG my autocorrect autocorrects ‘yes’ to YASSSSS.

CASSI: …

BOTH: YASSSSSSSSSSSS.

…

They do the laugh-sigh.

SIMONE: So I walk in and Paul, the accompanist, is wearing a print of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights – it gives the impression at first glance that it’s a back, front and full sleeves full-colour tatt, and that he’s naked from the waist up, with tortured faces on his nipples –

THREE

The music stops. The lighting shifts – we are in her audition room.

PANELIST: Hello? I said what role would you like to sing in six months’ time?

SIMONE: Uh, sorry! Well, chorus in Porgy and Bess, I suppose.

PANELIST: Right. What have you brought for us?

SIMONE: I’ve got some Czech? Or a French aria –

PANELIST: Okay. Let’s hear that then.

SIMONE: Thank you.

SIMONE begins to sing Offenbach’s ‘The Doll Song’, which morphs into F. Dumont & J. Stewart’s ‘I Want to See The Old Home’, at which point there is a transformation into the magical world of the stage. By the end of the number we have reached a single spotlight, glitter, quick change (featuring minstrel gloves) territory…

Les oiseaux dans la charmille

Dans les cieux l’astre du jour

Tout parle à la jeune fille

Tout parle à la jeune fille d’amour

Tout parle d’amour

Voilà la chanson gentille

La chanson d’Olympia, d’Olympia

Ah!

I’ve wandered very far away

From the clime where I was born

And my poor heart has been so sad,

Dejected and forlorn;

No master kind to treat me well,

To cheer me when in pain,

I want to see the cotton fields,

And the dear old home again

When I was free, I left that land,

Where the days are bright and fair,

Where Massa spoke to me so kind,

When I was bow’d with care;

I left that home no friends to find,

My heart was fill’d with pain

Oh! take me to that good old home,

To see it once again

Oh, the good old days are pass’d and gone,

I sigh for them in vain;

I want to see the cotton fields,

And the dear old home again

PANELIST: –

SIMONE: –

PANELIST: Never bring this song to an audition again

SIMONE: –

PANELIST: because you are not a soprano.

FOUR

Traffic sounds.

CASSI: To ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Characters
• Part One
• Part Two