Mayenburg: Three Plays

Marius von Mayenburg, Maja Zade

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781783199433
• eBook ISBN: 9781783199440
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Eldorado: Anton's got it made: dream house, artistic wife, baby on the way. And, as the smoke rises from another city saved by coalition bombs, there's a fortune to be made rebuilding the wreckage. So what's he doing forging his boss's signature? And why has his wife crushed her hands under the piano lid? Painfully funny scenes of married bliss in meltdown and the insistent presence, on their screens and in their dreams, of the West's far-flung and half-forgotten wars – Eldorado asks what happens when the drive for success carries us past our coping point. Perplexed: Taking inspiration from Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, as well as the pens of Stoppard, Nietzsche and Beckett, influential writer Marius von Mayenburg has created a fast-paced and very funny piece of contemporary absurdism. The four actors play musical chairs with their characters in an astonishing tumble of scenes. Their characters are patchwork individuals, groping for assurance and security in a constantly disintegrating reality, while slipping on the metaphysical banana peels von Mayenburg throws in their path. A comedy about the capriciousness of reality, one's own identity, and the theatre itself. The Dog, The Night and the Knife: A nightmarish flight through a city, in which all men and women have striking similarities: policeman and doctor, criminal and lawyer, patient and nurse. And all of them are after M. Just as the night seems done, and dawn is coming, M faces the irrevocable choice between dangerous love with a zombie, and the lonely hunt with a dog.

PERPLEX

Perplex was first performed at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz on 20 November 2010, directed by Marius von Mayenburg.

The first English-language production was at Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf 1 Theatre on 31 March 2014, directed by Sarah Giles.

Characters

EVA

JUDITH

ROBERT

SEBASTIAN

The names of the actors in the original production were: Eva Meckbach, Judith Engel, Robert Beyer and Sebastian Schwarz. They were kind enough to let me use their first names for this play. It’s up to each new production to decide whether they want to use these names as well or to substitute them with the names of their actors. The surname Eckels should be kept.

Location:

A living room in a single-family house. A kitchen door on the left, a door to the hallway on the right.

(ROBERT enters from the hallway, he’s carrying two suitcases. Puts them down.)

ROBERT: Right.

(He stands between the suitcases, looks around.)

Any mail?

(Nothing. He repeats, without raising his voice.)

Any mail?

(Nothing. He takes off his jacket, sits on the sofa. Looks around. Shouts angrily.)

I asked you a question, Eva.

(Nothing. He gets up and opens a window. Calm again.)

This place needs some fresh air.

(EVA enters from the hallway, a parcel under her arm, a pile of letters and postcards in her hand. She’s staring at an opened letter on top of the pile.)

EVA: Listen, Robert –

(She stops, stares at the letter. Puts the parcel on the coffee table.)

ROBERT: No one opened a window the whole time we were gone.

EVA: Robert, listen, I’m just wondering –

(ROBERT returns from the window and bumps into the coffee table.)

ROBERT: (Surprised.) Ouch.

EVA: Did you send the money for the electricity?

ROBERT: (Rubs his shin.) What electricity?

EVA: The electric company. Did you pay the bill.

ROBERT: What do you mean the electric company? I just banged my leg on this thing.

EVA: Because apparently they’ve cut it off.

ROBERT: (Examines his shin.) I always get a bruise.

(EVA goes to the light switch, flicks it on and off, nothing happens.)

EVA: You see?

ROBERT: Yes. No light. But you don’t pay the electric company for your electricity.

EVA: Well – you certainly didn’t.

ROBERT: They can’t just turn off our electricity.

EVA: No?

(She angrily flicks the switch.)

ROBERT: Why me, anyway?

EVA: There are two reminders.

ROBERT: Why do I have to pay the electricity bill?

EVA: Because you said you’d take care of it.

ROBERT: You’re making that up.

EVA: Robert. We no longer have any electricity. We’re sitting in the dark.

ROBERT: It’s light.

EVA: Because the sun is shining. When it goes down it’ll be dark.

ROBERT: That’s because the earth turns, what do you want me to do about it?

EVA: Pay your fucking bills.

ROBERT: Aha. My bills.

EVA: If you say you’re going to do it, do it. Otherwise

I’d rather do it myself in the first place.

ROBERT: How am I supposed to do it when I’m on holiday? And anyway, why didn’t Sebastian and Judith tell us that we got these reminders.

EVA: Because they don’t read our letters.

ROBERT: They’re here every day watering your stupid flowers, they could be a bit more vigilant, no?

EVA: And tear open our letters?

ROBERT: From the electric company, if that’s what it says in big letters, electricity, what’s private about that, you tear it open, you have a look, you think, it’s the least you can do before the electricity gets turned off.

EVA: Calm down.

ROBERT: What?

EVA: Calm down.

ROBERT: I don’t need to calm down, you’re the one who should calm down: flick, flick, we’re in the dark.

EVA: My flowers aren’t stupid.

ROBERT: This isn’t about your flowers.

EVA: They’re your flowers too.

ROBERT: No.

(Nothin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Dog, the Night and the Knife
• Eldorado
• Perplex
• (Endnotes.)