Villette

Charlotte Bronte, Linda Marshall-Griffiths

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781786820495
• eBook ISBN: 9781786820501
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

An adaptation of the classic novel on the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë's birth. With echoes of the illness and loss that wracked Brontë's own life, both novel and play explore the redemptive power of love and the uncertainty of holding on to it. Lucy Snowe, alone and abandoned, boards a boat in search of purpose. Arriving at an archaeological site digging for the remains of the elusive Lady of Villette, she works alongside the beautiful Gin, the prying Beck, the charming Dr John and the remote Professor Paul, though Lucy remains an outsider. Absorbed in her work to find a cure for the next pandemic to secure humanity's future, can she open herself up to the possibility of love and put the bones of the past behind her?

Act One

ONE

LUCY stands. She is on the deck of a ship, it is night.

LUCY:	The sky is the first thing, I haven’t… I haven’t ever seen the sea, it isn’t the colour I… The boat dips and…
	I don’t dare lie down or… I don’t know what to do… I paid for a seat to sleep on but…
	I’m scared to speak. A grey man lay across my chair, mouth open I…
	The boat crawls its way. I make myself stare at the stars and the cold I…
	I haven’t eaten for seventeen hours I am afraid to buy, I have money, even a cup of tea… I am afraid of giving myself away.
	I…
	I sit on a bench on a deck and watch a man and a woman looped over each other
	The night, throws out a thin cloak We cut through.
	Find another place away from the brawl of the bar And the gawps (no one knows who I am) I taste my empty stomach, Sleep for a second,
	Jerk awake.
	I sit eyes open still not sleeping… Count the squares on the deck and watch the stain on the sea that moves with us.
	Morning creep up on me, I wait.
	I dare at five am to buy myself a carpoon of chen. As I pay I say, (Out-loud.) Thanks. …is that my voice? It is the first word I have said out loud for eighty-seven days.

TWO

LUCY stands. The outside becomes a small cell. JOHN, a doctor, enters pulling on gloves.

Through a screen, from another place BECK watches, PAUL enters.

...

BECK:	What do you think?
PAUL:	Of what?
BECK:	That face.
PAUL comes to the screen too.
JOHN:	Please remove your…
LUCY:	No.
	I…
PAUL:	Why?
JOHN:	Everyone who works here is subject to a medical.
BECK:	Would you trust her?
PAUL:	Not if she’s like any of the rest /of us.
	LUCY:	/You’ve read my record.
BECK:	To work?
PAUL:	Here?
	JOHN:	You were in vicinity of a deadly virus…
	LUCY:	A //year ago.
PAUL:	//What virus?
	JOHN:	…and survived.
	LUCY:	I was never in direct contact.
	JOHN:	We need to verify that.
	LUCY:	I’d be dead.
JOHN prepares a syringe, and then her arm.
	JOHN:	/Bloods first.
PAUL:	/She’s a virologist?
BECK:	Red strain.
	I know every last study of every last study – who is she?
BECK:	Look at her wrist.
PAUL:	What about her…?
BECK:	The digital steel band, Non-removable.
PAUL stares through at LUCY…
PAUL:	I thought they were all dead.
BECK:	A few survived.
…As JOHN starts to take the blood.
LUCY:	A part of me trembles. Always tests. Blood, skin, cells. You study us.
BECK:	She was Professor Snowes’. One of the versions.
PAUL:	Of course – I knew I knew that face. I met Snowe, I… she was…,
JOHN removes needle and blood.
	Bru/tal.
	LUCY:	/You take bits of me like…
JOHN:	To make sure you’re well.
LUCY:	//I’m well.
JOHN tests sample (with a digital pen).
PAUL:	//It’s like seeing a ghost.
BECK:	She said she came on her own.
PAUL:	Are they allowed to travel?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Author Note
• Contents
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two