Parents' Evening

Bathsheba Doran

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786826596
• eBook ISBN: 9781786826602
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"Would you please remember that it's not us they're assessing." She's been disruptive in class. She's rude to the teachers. And now she wants to learn the trumpet. But whose performance is really being judged? A mother and father prepare to discuss their daughter's progress at the local primary school, but their rare opportunity for some quality time together begins to test the bonds of love, work and family. Charged, passionate and surprising, Parents' Evening is a fierce and funny play about modern marriage and parenthood. This European premiere marks the homecoming of a major British talent already acclaimed in America.

Act One

The only thing that there needs to be on stage is a double bed. Anything else can be actual or suggested and should fade into the darkness of the rest of the stage, so that what we see is a small glimpse of a world floating in the island of the theatre.

The MOTHER has just come in the room. She is looking at some papers.

It is early evening.

FATHER: You were in with her for a long time.

MOTHER: She was upset.

FATHER: She was supposed to be upset. If she can’t win gracefully then she shouldn’t play.

MOTHER: She got excited.

FATHER: Oh so excited. Making up a little victory song. And then just singing it over and over again. ‘I’ve won, you’re dumb.’ I mean that doesn’t even rhyme.

MOTHER: It’s a half rhyme.

FATHER: She took no pleasure in our company. Just wanted to roll over us like a fucking tank and win as quickly as possible.

MOTHER: The object of the game is to win, Michael.

FATHER: The object is to provide pleasant social interaction. That’s what a game’s for. That’s why they were invented. They are meant to be a communal experience. Not an opportunity for our daughter to plot our destruction and then actually snort with glee once she’s achieved it.

MOTHER: We ought to start her on Scrabble. It would be good for her vocabulary. And her spelling.

Beat.

FATHER: I’ll tell you what I don’t understand about Clue. Why would you kill someone with a candlestick, if there was a revolver available?

Beat.

I don’t know. Gloating. It was disgusting. That is a bad habit.

MOTHER: I explained to her that it wasn’t nice.

FATHER: For an hour?

MOTHER: No. And then we just talked.

FATHER: And what were you talking about?

MOTHER: She told me about her day.

FATHER: And how was her day?

MOTHER: She trespassed. On someone’s property. During her lunch break.

FATHER: She what?

MOTHER: She went trespassing. I scolded her.

FATHER: Whose property?

MOTHER: I have no idea.

FATHER: She can’t do that.

MOTHER: I know. That’s what I told her.

FATHER: Jesus.

MOTHER: It’s alright. She’s consumed with guilt.

FATHER: That’s all a big performance.

MOTHER: It wasn’t a performance. By the time she told me she’d got herself so upset she could hardly breathe. But I calmed her down. We talked about it.

FATHER: I’m sure that’s why she does these things. She does evil all day then pays penance in the evening and she knows perfectly well you’ll absolve her. What did you do? Tell her to say a couple of Hail Mary’s?

MOTHER: I told her not to do it again.

FATHER: That’s it?

MOTHER: And I got her to talk about why she’d done it …

FATHER: And?

MOTHER: The other kids went.

FATHER: I don’t like those kids she’s hanging around with. That girl Victoria is a thug.

MOTHER: Her mother’s a potter.

FATHER: Well her daughter’s a criminal. Trespassing. Thank God they weren’t caught. Were they?

MOTHER: Not as far as I know.

FATHER: I suppose the police would have contacted us by now.

MOTHER: I’ll tell you who else wants to contact us.

FATHER: Who?

MOTHER: Sarah Barnes’ mother.

FATHER: Oh God, what’s Jessica done?

MOTHER: I don’t know. Nothing. When Anne-Marie picked Jessica up from school today Mrs. Barnes told her to tell us that Jessica lent Sarah a book that apparently is inappropriate.

FATHER: Inappropriate how?

MOTHER: It was about sex.

FATHER: What does the woman want us to do? Censor Jessica’s reading?

MOTHER: I know. I think it’s fine, really. Jessica told me about it. It’s teenage fiction. Young couple, they fall in love, they have sex.

FATHER: Well Jessica knows about sex.

MOTHER: And then they have oral sex.

Beat.

FATHER: Well she’s read it now.

MOTHER: Yes, but it’s one of a series.

FATHER: Oh.

MOTHER: She wants to read the rest of them.

FATHER: I see.

MOTHER: There are nine.

FATHER: Nine? What do they do by the end?

MOTHER: I have no idea.

FATHER: I wonder if we’ve done it …

MOTHER: The kids are hooked.

FATHER: I bet they are.

MOTHER: Mrs Barnes was upset. She wants to speak to us about it this evening.

FATHER: At least the kids are exchanging books. That’s positive.

MOTHER: Not according to Mrs. Barnes. We’ll have to spend the whole time avoiding her.

FATHER: I think we should tell her to fuck off. She can censor her own child’s reading. I’m not censoring mine. And wher...

Table of contents

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