Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi

Pam Gems

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781783190430
• eBook ISBN: 9781783195428
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

'My loves, what are we to do? We don't do as they want any more, and they hate it. What are we to do?' Four determinedly 'liberated' – and very different – women ricochet around a tiny shared flat, while trying to pull together the shattered strands of their lives: Dusa is struggling to regain her children from their father, Fish is losing her lover to another woman, Stas is on the game to finance the course she wants to study at university, while Vi steadfastly refuses to eat.... A bitingly sardonic modern classic, widely regarded as an historic icon of early feminism, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976 under the title Dead Fish, Michael Codron transferred the play to the West End under its new title where it enjoyed a huge success and established Pam Gems as a major new voice in British theatre.

ACT TWO

The same set. The telephone rings. Eventually DUSA enters and answers it.

DUSA: Yes? No, she’s not here.

FISH enters. She looks unwashed and messy. She is smoking a cigarette.

DUSA: It was for Stas.

FISH: Sure. Is she going out tonight?

DUSA: I don’t know. Anyway, I’m here.

FISH: Sure. Do you know what he said? ‘I feel like a change.’ I mean. And then he said ‘don’t ring me at home.’ Home! I made such a fool of myself. Crying. I mean I don’t care…he’s used to seeing me in pain, when was it ever anything else?

DUSA: Don’t.

FISH: I’m prepared to change myself! Anything he wants! I’ll swing from the chandeliers… I have done!

(Pause. She walks about, smoking.)

You know she threatened to kill herself.

DUSA: I know.

STAS enters from work.

FISH: (To STAS.) You know she threatened to kill herself?

STAS: You told me.

FISH: Blackmail. Bloody blackmail.

STAS: We’ve got a woman on the wards who tried it, stepped off the fourth floor…broken pelvis and her face wired up. For a feller? Forget it.

FISH: Oh, you’re right, you’re absolutely right. He’s still fallen for it, though.

STAS: Did you speak to him?

FISH: Yes.

STAS: And?

FISH: She’s ‘dependant’. She ‘needs’ him. So…on with the casseroled chicken – he’s walking about with a pot plant under his arm! – oh Christ, I can’t fucking stop. We went on and on on the phone… I couldn’t believe it was me saying all this crap! I wouldn’t let him ring off… I couldn’t bear it, I wanted to go on hearing his voice. I only let him go by making him promise to ring me again…poor bugger didn’t know whether he was coming or going. I think I’ll go to bed.

DUSA: Want anything?

FISH shakes her head and goes.

I wish I could be more support.

STAS: Stay out of it.

DUSA: All right for you, you’re the only one who’s not in a mess. (STAS gives her a dry look, unseen.)

People think Fish is OK because she hides behind this sort of…you know, manner.

STAS: Mrs Pankhurst.

DUSA: Well, she could be in Acapulco, sunning her feet. She doesn’t have to get involved.

STAS: Right.

DUSA: But she still does it. I admire that. I admire people who are on the move.

STAS: Oh for God’s sake, it’s a breed. You name it, they’re up to their necks in it. I had one once, against war or something…she even had me signing. Next time we met it was anti-fluoride, same spit all over me face. If it isn’t GM, it’s astrology, tarot, or everything’s down to the cabbage diet. All the same bunch.

DUSA: Oh that’s shitty.

STAS: True.

DUSA: At least Fish puts her muscle where her mouth is.

STAS: Fucking about.

DUSA: They’re changing things! Somebody’s got to.

STAS: Why?

DUSA: Come on…we’re not perfect yet.

STAS: I’ll tell you what’s changing things…the last fifty years of physics and the next fifty years of biology. What you’re talking about is fashion.

DUSA: Am I? The Russian revolution wasn’t fashion, that changed a few things.

STAS: Ever check the body count?

DUSA: Science has casualty lists too, you know.

STAS: Science is us, doing the best we can.

DUSA: So’s Fish!

STAS: All right. Just so long as her campaigns quote the second law of thermodynamics.

DUSA: Eh?

STAS: That there is a tendency in the world for things to collapse. Ask my old Dad, back on the farm, he’ll tell you.

DUSA: (Slight pause.) Nonetheless…nonetheless, I do believe there are times in history…I mean, I can’t talk about it like Fish…

STAS: Theory of great beauty, that. The second law.

DUSA: Oh, theories I’m talking about human beings.

STAS: (Slight pause.) We can replicate people now. Did you know that?

DUSA: What?

STAS: We can cross-breed. A deer with a monkey, an elephant with a cow. Think about it. If you want an animal with rapid maturation…ready to eat in six weeks, with white flesh…and caviare…you’ve got it. Makes you think, eh? Fifty years from now we shan’t need Concorde, we’ll all have fins and feathers.

DUSA: Oh come on.

STAS: True.

DUSA: Oh…well… I don’t know anything about it.

STAS: No, that’s the trouble with you lot. Consult the crystals for this year’s hemline – do you ever think?

DUSA: All the time.

STAS: About what? I mean, scientif...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword to the Revised Edition
• Notes on Characters
• Contents
• Act One
• Act Two