Caryl Phillips: Plays One

Strange Fruit; Where There is Darkness; The Shelter

Caryl Phillips

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786827913
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Three plays by playwright and novelist Caryl Phillips, written in the 1980s and collected here for the first time. Strange Fruit is a powerful study of a black family caught between two cultures; Where There is Darkness examines the plight of a West Indian man, Albert Williams, on the eve of his return to the Caribbean after an absence of twenty-five years; The Shelter alternates between the late eighteenth-century and 1950s London, exploring the relationship between a black man and a white woman.

STRANGE FRUITFor Catherine

Characters

(In order of appearance)

MOTHER

VERNICE

SHELLEY

ERROL

ALVIN

Act One

Scene One: Monday. Late afternoon

Scene Two: Monday. Later that night

Act Two

Scene One: Tuesday. Early morning

Scene Two: Tuesday. Afternoon

Act Three

Scene One: Tuesday. Evening

A note on the language

The language in Strange Fruit has to be a careful mixture of West Indian English (patois), Standard English, and English working-class regional dialect. In the language one should be able to detect the socio-cultural confusion which undermines any immediate hopes of harmony within the body politic of the family.

Act One

SCENE ONE

The action takes place in the front room of the Marshalls’ terraced house in one of England’s inner city areas. Whilst the district is not a ghetto, it is hardly suburbia. The room is cramped but comfortable and tidy. In the D.R. wall is a door which leads to the hall, and subsequently to the front door. In the back wall (slightly right of centre) is another door, which can be concealed by the drawing of a curtain. This door leads upstairs to the bedrooms and the bathroom. In the D.L. wall is a door which leads to the kitchen. It is one of those that slides open, rather than pulls or pushes open. The main items of furniture are as follows: against the back wall there is a heavy sideboard, on top of which sits a brightly crocheted coverlet, a large plastic punchbowl and ladle, a yellow glass vase containing plastic flowers, and a box of paper tissues. D.R. is a cabinet full of crockery that has never been, and never will be used. In the centre of the display is a plate commemorating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. The cabinet also contains a few bottles of spirits, and on top of it sit the family photographs. D.L. is a small table underneath which there are some albums. A small stereo sits on top with the speakers placed on the floor either side, thus completing this nest of music. In the centre of the room is an imitation black leather settee with orange yellow cushions. U.L. slightly is the armchair to match. The room is completed by the television, which is D.L. by the stereo. As to the surroundings: the wallpaper is tasteless, and on the wall hang the usual trinkets. Sub-Athena prints, a circular mirror with a gnarled plastic, imitation brass border, and those birds made of pottery which are so arranged as to make it appear that they are migrating for the winter as they fly away, one after the other. The windows on the world are in the fourth wall. Acknowledgement of their presence is not necessary. As I said, the room is cramped, even claustrophobic, but tidy.

Lights up. 5 p.m. We hear a key in the front door and then the door slam. Enter MOTHER carrying a shopping bag. She shuts the door behind her, leans against it and sighs deeply. She looks like she has never had a day’s rest in her life but is still neat and immaculately turned out. She is in her late forties and both thinks and acts thoroughly, albeit with a somewhat premature autumnal serenity. Still through a small chink in her armour one can sense despair. She knows that most of what is going to happen is inevitable so she prepares for the worst, as ever. Clearly the twin concepts of love and fear are at the heart of her character. She puts down the bag, takes off her coat and drapes it over the back of the armchair. She moves across to the settee and sits alone with her thoughts for a moment.

VERNICE: (From the kitchen.) Girl, you back home yet? Vivien you hear me?

(She shuts the back door and comes through the open sliding door into the front room. VERNICE is portly, about the same age as MOTHER, and wears a brightly coloured headscarf, Scholl sandals, no tights, which, together with her happy-go-lucky demeanour, suggests an easy attitude to life, one which she likes to project. She enjoys unsettling people, but not in a vindictive manner. Humorously ‘loud’ at times, she enjoys her telly. For her, England’s not so much the enemy. Life has always been a struggle for survival. England is just the place where things have crumbled, where she has seen her life move from a very healthy top gear to a very insecure first. She sees MOTHER and sucks her teeth.)

Girl, why yuh no answer me, nuh?

MOTHER: I was about to. You didn’t give me time.

VERNICE: Girl, me give you plenty time. You ain’t hear me calling you or something, nuh.

MOTHER: I was about to, but I’ve only just got home from school.

VERNICE: You too wicked, you know.

MOTHER: I thought I locked that back door before I left this morning.

VERNICE: Errol open it for me before he go out.

MOTHER: To go where?

VERNICE: Me ain’t ask. He come a big man now, or you ain’t notice. (Sucks her teeth. Pause.) Alvin coming back tonight? Me see all him things them on the line.

MOTHER: Where are they?

VERNICE: Girl, what you think it is me do with them, nuh? Me put them in the flickin’ kitchen basket.

MOTHER: Tomorrow.

VERNICE: What you talking about tomorrow for, eh? Me put them in the damn basket today, girl.

MOTHER: Alvin is coming back tomorrow. I’m going to iron his clothes today.

VERNICE: Well, why you not say so instead of friggin’ me up so.

MOTHER: (Sighs.) Would you like som...