Botho Strauss: Three Plays

Botho Strauss, Jeremy Sams

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786822192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

Includes the plays The Park, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Time and the Room
These three plays, first published in German in the 1980s, show Strauss developing an enigmatic, unsettling and uniquely theatrical style. Set in Hamburg, The Park is Strauss's take on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Seven Doors brings together a jilted husband, a wedding without guests and two monks with an intimate knowledge of hell. In Time and The Room, the room contrives to be the play's main character.

THE PARK

Characters

GEORGE

HELEN

TITANIA

OBERON

FIRSTLING

COURTLING

THREE BOYS

TWO GIRLS

HELMA

BLACK BOY

CYPRIAN

WOLF

DEATH – THE MAN IN BLACK

THREE YOUNG MEN

BARMAN

YOUNG WAITER

TITANIA’S FABLE-SON

WAITRESS

This translation of The Park was first produced by the RSC in 1995 at the Pit Theatre, with the following company:

GEORGE, Simon Dormandy

HELEN, Julie Graham

TITANIA, Louise Jameson

OBERON, Adrian Lukis

FIRSTLING, Simon Kunz

COURTLING, Michael Jenn

BOY, Tom Williams

GIRL, Alison Reid

HELMA, Tessa Peake-Jones

BLACK BOY, Garron Mitchell

CYPRIAN, Barry McCarthy

WOLF, Richard Hope

DEATH / FABLE-SON, Jo Stone-Fewings

BARMAN, Tom Walker

YOUNG WAITER, Mark Lutheren

LITTLE MAN, Daniel Sharman

Director & Designer, David Fielding

Lighting Designer, Thomas Webster

Music, Adrian Johnston

Act One

SCENE 1

Town park. Bushes. The red elder twigs are bare, as if in winter. All sorts of rubbish lying around: paper, beer cans, old tights, shoes, a broken cassette trailing tape. While the stage is still dark, headlamps pass over the scene. Sounds of circus animals in their cages. Then light; dull light. We see a sand-pit; the sand is filthy. Behind, a dark red curtain, split down the middle. Strong light shines from this opening. An empty trapeze sways to and fro. HELEN is sitting on the edge of the sand-pit. Shaking. Smoking a cigarette. Enter GEORGE.

GEORGE: Good evening – how’s it going?

HELEN: Oh, hi! Well, you know. Not so bad – it’s all right – it’s okay.

GEORGE: I thought it would be nice to see you again. I thought I’d…

HELEN: Fine… Great.

GEORGE: So. How’s things. How’s Art?

HELEN: Art? You’re joking, you call that art? What they do isn’t art. Art’s something else. They’re just a bunch of fucking amateurs in there.

GEORGE: Look, you’re freezing to death. Why aren’t you in rehearsing with the others?

HELEN: Me? I’m not working with that lot any more. No way am I working with them any more.

GEORGE: God, did you have a bust-up with your colleagues? What happened, did you get fed up with them? Did they get fed up with you?

HELEN: With me? Listen, they think I’m fabulous. They’re crazy about me. I show up and I say, ‘Here, watch this, you’ll love this.’ And I do them ‘Sexy Helen on her Bed of Nails’ or ‘The Birdwoman’. You know, shit like that. But up on the trapeze it’s nothing but nag, nag, nag. My timing isn’t right, or I’m too tall, or I’m too short. Always some little gripe. So I start thinking, fuck this, I’m not some dumb little bimbo they can push around the whole time.

GEORGE: I’m sure they’ll be missing you in there.

HELEN: They won’t… I took a dive.

GEORGE: You what?

HELEN: I fell – from up there – fell off. Fell down…

GEORGE: Off the rope?

HELEN: Off the trapeze.

GEORGE: With a safety net?

HELEN: Nope.

GEORGE: Didn’t you hurt yourself?

HELEN: I didn’t get right back up there. That’s the thing. That’s the thing you’re not allowed to do. I’m doing this double twist – piece of cake – and then I just kind of fell. Look I can do a double twist, no problem. But this time I missed Pascal’s hand. Completely misjudged it. So down I go slap-bang into the sand. And I didn’t go back up. I thought, no way are you going back up there. And that’s the rule in the circus. You gotta get back up there. Even if it’s some amateur outfit. Even then. You’ve got to do it again or you’ve blown it for good.

GEORGE: I’ll drive you to the hospital. Someone should take a look at you.

HELEN: No. No, leave it. I’ll just go and have a wash. Shitty amateur bloody circus. Sheer waste of time. Bunch of no-hopers. Just amateurs. All talk, no action.

GEORGE: Come on. We’ll go and have a drink.

HELEN: Really? Okay. Fine.

(He puts his jacket over her shoulders. They leave.) I know these guys, these so-called superstars. I tell you, I’m every bit as good as them. They got nothing on me, none of them. Big mouths, but that’s all.

SCENE 2

TITANIA and OBERON’s heads appear in the bushes.

TITANIA: Back again, my Oberon? Back To pursue your sad, pathetic cause?

OBERON: Do not mock me, heartless Titania.

TITANIA: Me, I am no more heartless than you, my jealous Lord.

OBERON: Not even the clods of mud beneath our feet Can temper the pace of your lust.

TITANIA: Nor does your jealousy appear to wane

Though now it stalks me through the cold, and empty

Cities, and not, as once it did

Through the soft meadows of the clouds.

You hunt me through the heavens and on earth

But still your jealous song remains the same.

OBERON: Then stay here by my side, and let us try

To double our effect upon the cities.

Our endless bickering can only serve

To dull our radiance.

TITANIA:True, my Oberon

But still, our love of lust will always make us

Seem cantankerous.

OBERON: I have nothing against lust, certainly not my own.

TITANIA:No more have I.

But when you cram a god into this frame,

This finite insufficient human shape,

It will hurt. It does, it’s bloody agony.

(They disappear. Enter FIRSTLING and COURTLING.)

FIRSTLING: Look, don’t be offended, but it’s this far and no further. This is far enough.

COURTLING: But is this the place? Is it here that it starts?

FIRSTLING: Let’s go back, it doesn’t feel quite right…

COURTLING: I don’t believe this! You’re too scared to go walking through the park at night and yet you still have these dreams, like some randy old bull, of knocking a woman down in the bushes and raping her on the spot.

FIRSTLING: The fat woman. Yes, rather.

COURTLING: The fat woman. Who goes around with the skinniest man in the world. That beanpole. Legs like flamingos.

FIRSTLING: Used to. Used to go around with him. The thin man is dead.

COURTLING: No – really?

FIRSTLING: Yes.

COURTLING: Why is he dead?

FIRSTLING: What do you mean, ‘why’?

COURTLING: What did he die of?

FIRSTLING: What of? A thin man, who gets thinner every day, sooner or later he’s just going to vanish. He died of a wasting disease. A virus. A wasting virus. Probably an unknown virus.

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