Barker: Plays Six

(Uncle) Vanya; A House of Correction; Let Me; Judith; Lot and His God

Howard Barker

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849432849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático británico

Includes the plays Judith, (Uncle) Vanya, A House of Correction, Let Me and Lot and His God Barker's radical rewriting of Chekhov's classic Uncle Vanya brought him more controversy than most of his other works put together. Interrogating not so much Chekhov's text as the use to which society has put it, Barker turns Vanya's defeat into victory and converts a play of sadness into a tragedy of desire. A House of Correction is a meditation on cause and effect. Set on the eve of a war which may destroy a society, the seemingly arbitrary arrival of a messenger with a vital communication sets off an agonizing train of events in the lives of three desperate women. Few works of drama can have plumbed the depths of solitude and rage that characterize Let Me, a nightmare set on the frontiers of the Roman Empire during the barbarian invasions. Biblical narratives serve as the origin of two shorter works, of which Judith is a contemporary classic of cultural conflict, a reinterpretation of the status of the heroine in Israel's war of survival against the Assyrians. In Lot and His God, the imminent destruction of Sodom simultaneously licenses the moral decay of an angel and the erotic epiphany of an adored wife.

A HOUSE OF CORRECTION

Characters

SHARDLO

VISTULA

LINDSAY

HEBBEL

GODANSK

FIRST SERVANT

SECOND SERVANT

THIRD SERVANT

PART ONE

A MESSENGER

A damaged room. A storm of leaflets falls from the sky. They cascade onto and around a standing woman. The storm ceases. A second woman enters, and contemplates the first…

VISTULA: How very extraordinary, it is your way of standing that infuriates me now. How extraordinary this hatred is, how volatile…! Yesterday your hair enraged me, I could have torn it out by the roots…
(SHARDLO is motionless…)
Millions stand exactly like that, millions, and never until now did I find it in the least offensive. Shift, will you? Sit or something? Obviously it is not the posture – oh, you are uncompromising, you ask for all you get, oh you are so very adamantine and the less you concede the worse I become, I blame you for much of this…!
(SHARDLO does not move…)
I am not bad… (VISTULA shakes her head…)
I am not…
I am not bad…
(She clenches her fists… She hunches her shoulders in a spasm of pain. She hurries out. SHARDLO remains still for some time, then she erupts into movement.)

SHARDLO: (Calling.) PICK THIS UP…!

(She strides, she fetches. SERVANTS hurry in with straw baskets and pluck up the leaflets.)
I can’t
I won’t
I never do (She flings a white sheet over an iron bed…)
And sometimes – let us dare confess it – sometimes, yes, the poetry is good, the poetry is not without its qualities, some days rhyming, some days not, all tastes are catered for and whilst it is forbidden to allow one’s eyes to drift over the words inevitably one or two stand out good words unusual words that linger in the memory. (She fetches more linen.)

Paralysis I noticed and cacophony beautiful words in my opinion perhaps I should deny myself the luxury of speaking them but treason can’t reside in the vocabulary or can it surely it’s the attitude I don’t claim to understand these things (She stops suddenly in mid-movement.)

Now that was false (She is still.)

That was so false I understand perfectly well why did I affect an ignorance not one of you would attach the slightest credence to you of all people who know the strength of my intelligence why did I
(They continue, as if deaf to her.)
Now of all times
Succumb to
A pretence
(They collect. She reflects… She crushes the linen in her hands. She falters, then swiftly walks out, throwing the sheet to the floor. The SERVANTS continue undeflected, moving like crop-gatherers. A figure rises painfully out of the bed, haggard, pale, grasping the iron to haul himself upright.)

HEBBEL: Blood…!
Blood…!

(The SERVANTS ignore his existence… The sound of an aeroplane passing low. As it does so, the SERVANTS rise from their stooping postures in unison, and look up, then bend to continue collecting…)

HEBBEL: Blood…!
Blood…!

(Leaflets fall in dense clouds over the stage. In an attempt to sustain order, the SERVANTS collect the remnants of the first leaflet raid before attempting to gather the second… A woman enters, briskly.)

LINDSAY: Why do you keep saying blood?

(HEBBEL ignores her…)

It is not blood, it is paper…

HEBBEL: Blood…!

LINDSAY: You will get all the blood you want, I promise you.

HEBBEL: Never
Never
Never
Enough
Blood…

(Pause… LINDSAY stares at him…)

LINDSAY: To satisfy whom…?

(The old man’s hand lifts off the blanket and falls again. The last leaflets fall to the floor… The SERVANTS await an instruction to repeat their operation, and gawp at LINDSAY, baskets in their hands…)

Don’t be frightened, he is not an oracle. If anything, it is his own anaemia he is referring to… (She laughs, quietly…)

Carry on…

(They gather again. SHARDLO returns with more linen. She looks at LINDSAY…)

SHARDLO: We shall need that bed. (Pause…)
Shan’t we…? (Pause…)
We shall need all the beds we can get… (Pause…)
I am opposed to any sort of privilege in beds. He can stay until – (She stops. Her hand goes to her mouth. She sways a little, recovers…)
No, it’s his bed… (She shrugs…)
I’m…
I’m…
(She makes a gesture of futility.)
I have developed the aptitude for crisis when the crisis has yet to materialize… (She smiles…)
Never mind… when it does arrive how much more prepared I’ll be…!

(LINDSAY smiles wistfully… The SERVANTS gather… SHARDLO extends a hand to LINDSAY, impulsively…)

I do want to triumph… don’t you…? I do want to discover the extent of my magnificence…

LINDSAY: Yes…! And certainly this peace could not continue –

SHARDLO: Impossible –

LINDSAY: It was becoming – oh, intolerable…

(They clasp hands… LINDSAY looks down at the floor…)
I cannot wait to see your… (She shakes her head…)

SHARDLO: Dear one…

LINDSAY: To share in your… (She hesitates, shrugs…)
Can’t say it…

SHARDLO: Don’t say it, then… wait… witness it… and describe it afterwards…

(LINDSAY kisses her swiftly…)
I think this room can take eight beds. At a minimum. Obviously, eight is far from adequate. We shall be overwhelmed. We shall be inundated and our resources discovered to be utterly inadequate. We shall move like ghosts. Our characters, our appetites, will be suspended as we stagger under the effects of sleeplessness. Hope will evaporate. Energy will be drained. And the things we shall see…! (She bites her lip…)

Things the sight of which might now cause us to sink to our knees under a canopy of horror we shall – (She stops…) I don’t know yet… (She smiles.) No, let us have ten in here. Five on each wall and the centre, when we are swamped, can be –

(The deep drone of a passing plane. The SERVANTS stop and gaze up, having cleared a large part of the floor. The s...