It Is Easy to Be Dead

Neil McPherson

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781786820099
• eBook ISBN: 9781786820105
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

It Is Easy To Be Dead tells the story of war poet Charles Sorley's brief life through his work and music and songs from some of the greatest composers of the period. Born in Aberdeen, Sorley was studying in Germany when the First World War broke out and was briefly imprisoned as an enemy alien. He was one of the first to join the army in 1914.
Killed in action a year later at the age of 20, his poems are among the most ambivalent, profound and moving war poetry ever written. Nominated for seven OffWestEnd Awards following it's run at The Finborough and transferred to Trafalgar Studios Nov 16.

Act One

Projected images and video clips accompany the action.

Elements of the set include:

WILLIAM’s study. It has a large window with an open blind, a overstuffed bookcase, a small filing cabinet, a kneehole desk with chair, and a spare chair. On the desk is a blotter, pen, inkwell, paperknife, family photographs and a gas desk lamp. The desk and bookcase are littered with carefully organised piles of letters and papers.

Duckboards and the muddy and chalky wall of a trench, made up of rotting sandbags, holed by bullets, with a firestep, and a parapet topped with barbed wire.

A suggestion of a Western Front officers dugout, with walls scavenged from ammunition boxes and food crates, and an empty shell case hung up as a gas alarm.

A piano, littered with messy piles of sheet music and a stool for the SINGER.

As the audience enters, original recordings of Harry Lauder play. WILLIAM’s study is in bright morning sunlight. WILLIAM is at his desk, writing.

Music: Excerpt from ‘Lullaby’ from ‘3 Pieces for Piano, opus 23’ (Ernest Bristow Farrar).

There is the loud clanging of a doorbell. WILLIAM barely looks up and then continues to write. Offstage, we hear the door being opened and muffled voices.

JANET:(Offstage.) Oh. No, no reply.

A brief pause. A knock at WILLIAM’s study door.

WILLIAM:Come.

JANET enters, trembling with fear. She speaks with an educated Scottish accent. WILLIAM continues to write. When he speaks, he has an educated Scottish Borders accent.

JANET:William …

WILLIAM:(Finally looking up.) Umm?

JANET:There’s a telegram.

The colour drains from WILLIAM’s face. In a state of barely controlled anxiety, WILLIAM takes the telegram. A long silence.

WILLIAM:He is due for leave …

JANET:Yes. Please [[just open it.]]…

He opens the telegram with the paperknife, and reads it. We see from his reaction what it contains. He opens the telegram with the paperknife, and reads it. We see from his reaction what it contains. He folds it again, and hands the telegram to JANET.

JANETNo, no, no, no…

She cries. WILLIAM remains seated, stonily controlled. The lights fade on them.

Music: Opening bars of ‘When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow’ (Ivor Gurney).

There is a deafening crash of thunder, then the sound of heavy rain, lightning and thunder continuing throughout the scene. A video sequence of a violent thunderstorm over countryside, fading into a video sequence from the point of view of someone running at speed over the Marlborough Downs.

CHARLIE enters, cross-country running through the storm, dressed in a pair of shorts and a long loose white and red coloured jersey. He is soaking wet. He speaks RP with a perceptible Aberdeen accent.

CHARLIE:

We swing ungirded hips, And lightened are our eyes, The rain is on our lips, We do not run for prize. We know not whom we trust Nor whitherward we fare, But we run because we must Through the great wide air. The waters of the seas Are troubled as by storm. The tempest strips the trees And does not leave them warm. Does the tearing tempest pause? Do the tree-tops ask it why? So we run without a cause ‘Neath the big bare sky. The rain is on our lips, We do not run for prize. But the storm the water whips And the wave howls to the skies. The winds arise and strike it And scatter it like sand, And we run because we like it Through the broad bright land.

The study. JANET with a poem in her hand is looking out of the window. It is early evening. WILLIAM enters. He wears a mourning armband.

JANETIt’s dreich out.

WILLIAM:Charlie’s weather.

Pause.

JANETI was looking at his poems.

WILLIAM:I see that.

JANET–

WILLIAM:We’ve already discussed this, Janetta.

JANETThe University Press would publish them. You could ask.

WILLIAM:It’s not what he would have wanted. You know what he said when you suggested it before.

WILLIAM opens a desk drawer and takes out a huge pile of letters. He searches through them.

WILLIAM:Here. “I’m afraid I think your proposal premature. For three years or the duration of the war, let be.”

Pause.

JANETThat was before.

Pause.

WILLIAM:(Quietly.) I know that.

JANETJust a wee book. Jean wants us to.

WILLIAM:And Kenneth?

JANET[[It took a bit of work, but]] He’s agreed.

WILLIAM:So I’m the only one in the way?

Beat.

JANET:And there’s all his letters. Everyone is printing letters from the front from those that have … [[fallen]].

She is on the verge of tears.

WILLIAM:

Absolutely not.

JANET:Just privately I meant, for friends and family. Everybody is doing it.

WILLIAM:

That doesn’t mean that we have to.

JANET:With a wee biographical chapter …
You know, the sort of thing. He was of Scottish descent.

WILLIAM:

On both sides.

Projected images of the young Charlie growing up, family life and including a photograph of the Sorley’s home in Cambridge, views of Cambrid...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• By the same Author