Stephens Plays: 2

One Minute; Country Music; Motortown; Pornography; Sea Wall

Simon Stephens

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781408113912
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781408114780
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

This second collection of plays by Simon Stephens, winner of the 2005 Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World, perfectly showcases the development of one of the most exciting and impressive theatre talents of recent years. The range of plays in this volume displays a tough sensibility and a courage to confront the more unsettling challenges of our times.

One Minute, first produced in 2003 and revived in London in 2008, has an uncomfortable resonance as it follows five characters variously affected by the disappearance of Daisy, an 11-year-old girl, from Seven Dials, Covent Garden.
Country Music spotlights four fateful moments in the life of Jamie Carris during and after the prison sentences he has served for glassing one man and for killing another.
Motortown, written in response to the War on Terror, is a blistering account of a young soldier's return home from Basra to an England he no longer recognises or connects with.
Pornography captures Britain as it crashes from the euphoria and promise of the 2012 Olympics announcement into the devastation of the London bombings of 7/7.

The final play, Sea Wall, is a one-act monologue about grief, following the drowning of a young child.

One Minute For Ben, Sara and Archie.
And dedicated also to Laura.

One Minute was first performed at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, on 6 June 2003. The cast was as follows:

Marie Louise Burdett	Lucy Black
Catherine Denham	Sarah Paul
Dr Anne Schults	Teresa Banham
DI Gary Burroughs	Simon Wolfe
DC Robert Evans	Tom Ellis

Director Gordon Anderson

Designer Anthony Macilwaine

Composer Julian Swales

Lighting Nigel Edwards

Characters

Marie Louise Burdett, twenty-seven

Catherine Denham, twenty-one

Dr Anne Schults, thirty-six

DI Gary Burroughs, thirty-eight

DC Robert Evans, twenty-four

Setting

The play is set in a variety of locations in London, over the course of 2001.

The set should be as spare as possible.

A character who plays in two consecutive scenes need not wait to arrive in any second setting before playing the second scene. Rather the scenes can bleed, quite quickly, into one another.

The characters should remain onstage throughout.

The dates could be displayed or announced before each section starts.

During the blackouts the silhouettes of the characters should become gradually clear.

The silences could be punctuated. Perhaps brief, intrusive, warning beeps. The kind of sound that fax machines make when they run out of paper.

A dash (–) after a word denotes an interruption or an inability to speak or complete a word or sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) denotes a trailing-off.

January

Blackout. Ten seconds.

A clothes shop on High Street Kensington. Midday. Marie Louise Burdett and Catherine Denham. Marie Louise stares at an unnoticing Catherine for some time before she speaks to her. She is holding a T-shirt. Holds it away from herself. Looks at it through light.

Marie Louise What do you think?

Catherine I think it suits you.

Marie Louise (looking away) I’m not sure.

Catherine It’s very simple. In a good way. Not, y’know, not flashy.

Marie Louise No.

Catherine I think it’s really smart.

Long pause. Catherine turns from her.

Marie Louise I hate this. All . . . this.

Catherine Yeah.

Marie Louise Do you know what I mean?

Catherine Yes.

Very long pause. Catherine turns to watch her.

Marie Louise (about another T-shirt) But this I like.

Catherine Oh yes.

Marie Louise This is very good.

Marie Louise smells the T-shirt.

Catherine It works.

Marie Louise I’m sorry?

Catherine I said it works. I don’t think you should look further. It works.

Marie Louise How much is it?

Catherine I’ve no idea.

Marie Louise Can’t you look it up?

Catherine I’m sorry?

Marie Louise Can’t you look it up? Don’t you have a, a, a, a, a book or something? A book you could look the price up in?

Catherine I don’t work here.

Marie Louise I’m sorry?

Catherine I said I don’t work here. I’m just, I’m looking for clothes too. I don’t actually, this isn’t my job.

Marie Louise Oh my God. I’m so sorry. That’s God, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s –

Catherine It’s all right.

Marie Louise No. That’s terrible. How embarrassing. I honestly didn’t think. I mean I thought. I wasn’t thinking. Clearly. I mean clearly. Well. Where is everybody?

Catherine I don’t know.

Marie Louise There’s nobody here.

Catherine I know.

Marie Louise I could just walk out with this.

Catherine Are you crying?

Marie Louise What?

Catherine Don’t cry. It’s all right.

Marie Louise I’m not crying! For God’s sake!

She examines the garment.

I don’t even think there’s, is there a little, one of those, is there a tag or anything? A magnetic strip or anything? I don’t think ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Chronology
• Introduction
• One Minute
• Country Music
• Motortown
• Pornography
• Sea Wall