Barker: Plays One

Howard Barker

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781840026122
• eBook ISBN: 9781849433310
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: British Drama

Includes the plays Victory, The Europeans, The Possibilities and Scenes From An Execution. Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. These plays are among his best-known works, and their energy, poetic language and imagination have fixed them firmly in the international repertoire. Exploring the tragic form defined by Barker as Theatre of Catastrophe, three of the plays speculate on human behaviour in moments of historical crisis. Victory is set in the English Civil War and follows the ethical voyage of a widow towards personal reconstruction. The Europeans takes one of the great eruptions of Islamic imperialism asthe background for a young woman's insistence on her right to her own identity. Scenes from an Execution shows the struggle of an independently-minded artist against the power of the Venetian state. The Possibilities, a disturbing series of short plays set in various times and cultures, reveals Barker's unconventional way with moral dilemmas.

VICTORY
Choices in Reaction

Characters

BRADSHAW, the Widow of a Polemicist
SCROPE, a Secretary
CHARLES STUART, a Monarch
NODD, his Intimate Friend
DEVONSHIRE, a Mistress
BALL, a Cavalier
McCONOCHIE, a Surgeon
CROPPER, Daughterof Bradshaw
BOOT, a Soldier
SHADE, a Soldier
WICKER, a Soldier
DARLING, a Soldier
GAUKROGER, a Captain
ROAST, a Civil Servant
CLEGG, the Poet Laureate
SOUTHWARK, a Male Landowner
CLEVELAND, a Female Landowner
PONTING, a Court Official
HAMPSHIRE, a Male Landowner
BRIGHTON, a Female Landowner
SOMERSET, a Male Landowner
DERBYSHIRE, a Male Landowner
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, a Male Landowner
FEAK, a Republican
PYLE, a Republican Woman
EDGBASTON, a Radical Preacher
HAMBRO, a Banker
MOBBERLEY, a Builder
PARRY, a Stockbroker
UNDY, an Exporter
STREET, a Lawyer
MONCRIEFF, a Minister
GWYNN, a Prostitute
FOOTMAN, to Devonshire
MILTON, a Genius
BEGGARS

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

A field. A man enters.

SCROPE: I know I swore. I know I promised. On the Bible. And because I can take or leave the Bible, got your child in and told me put my two hands on her cheeks and looking in her eyes say I would not disclose this place. No matter what the madness, what the torture, leave you underneath the nettles, safe. I did. I know I did.
(He points to a place. SOLDIERS enter with spades.)

BOOT: A scythe, John!

SHADE: Oh, the cunning of ’im, oh, the artfulness, sneakin’ ’is bits under the lush at night...

BOOT: Mind the thistles.

WICKER: Now tell us ’e is twelve foot deep.

SCROPE: Twelve feet at least...

WICKER: Twelve foot, Michael! And the sun like the bald baker’s bollocks!

BOOT: (To DARLING.)No, a scythe, you know a scythe, do you?
(DARLING goes out.)

WICKER: Ow! Thistle got me!

SHADE: This is nothin’ to what we ’ave ’ad, is it? Draycott was under fifteen ton a rock.

BOOT: At low water.

SHADE: At low water. We was in and out like the mad vicar’s dick.

BOOT: (To DARLING.) Thank you. That is a scythe.

SHADE: An’ Rouse, who ’ad ’imself stuck in the street, ’alf in the pavement, ’alf in a shop –

BOOT: (Scything.) Mind yer legs!

GAUKROGER: I wonder if one of you cunts would condescend to fetch my stool? In your own time, of course, at your very own cunt leisure?

BOOT: Captain’s stool, John!
(DARLING hurries out.)

GAUKROGER: I hate to trouble you cunts, I honestly do.

SHADE: This draper says, ‘What! The corpse of a rebel under my shop! Well, I never! ’ow did that come about!’ So we go through ’is bedrooms, an’ ’is trunks, an’ ’is girls. And there it is. Milton. Latin dirt.

GAUKROGER: (As DARLING brings in a stool.) Thank you. I have commanded some cunts, but you take the cunt biscuit.

SHADE: So we slit it, this draper’s long nose. For misuse of the highway. ‘Well I never! Well, I never!’ ’e says...

BOOT: (Scything.) Mind yer legs.

GAUKROGER: A stool, Mr Scrope? These cunts will be at it all day.
(SCROPE shakes his head.)
Who had my sunshade?
(They are digging.)
My sunshade?
(The clash of shovels.)
I do love the way they pretend to be deaf. They really are such extraordinary cunts.

BOOT: Captain’s sunshade!
(DARLING goes out.)

GAUKROGER: We never had one out of a field. Under the whispering cow shit and adulterous hips. Gob open to clay and the milkmaid’s hot little puddle. But in sight of church steeple, I notice. How picturesque he was and diligent. Was he, Mr Scrope? Cunt picturesque your master?
(SCROPE bursts into tears.)
The files are such cunts here. Would one of you run for a whisk?

SCENE TWO

A room. A WOMAN and two OFFICERS of the crown.

BRADSHAW: I am not asking you to sit. If I ask you to sit you will think at least she has good manners, at least she does things properly, she keeps things clean. I do not wish to do things properly or keep them clean. What do you want?

ROAST: I have to inform you –

BALL: Oh, the pontificating shitbag –

ROAST: I am instructed by His Majesty’s –

BALL: Oh, the pontificating shitbag –

ROAST: May I just get this –

BALL: No, she is though, isn’t she, a most pontificating bag of shit, Brian –

ROAST: If I could just –

BALL: Laying aside the instructing and informing for a minute, you have to marvel at her poopy aspect. I do. I have to marvel at it, all her straight back and white linen, her simple dignity and so on, it makes me want to kick the table through the window –

ROAST: I cannot see the point of making this –

BALL: I haven’t finished yet!
(He goes to her.)
Brian is for being nice. Brian is ice cold and happy. But Brian never swagged his hours with the bints of Calais. I will be rude because I have lost fifteen years! Oh, my breath smells, my breath smells and she winces! Yours does not, does it, breathe on me, breathe on me –

ROAST: Andrew –

BALL: Oh, breathe on me your English breath, sweeter than roses, but then you have had English gardens to wipe your rump against, I have not but I am not angry, no, I’m not, I have licked Frenchmen’s bums for nourishment and Spaniards’ crotches! Breathe on me, breathe on me, do, when you stand there icy in your purity I could really dagger you with my old cavalier dick, that or murder, carry on informing, Billy.
(He walks away.)
Carry on!

ROAST: Mrs Bradshaw, the Government is in possession of your husband’s body.

BALL: Oh, Brian is so poop official! We have the rat-gnawed, stinking thing you clutched in bed once. That is what we have. What stuck up you when the cold mood took him, when God commanded fuck thy spouse or what you Bible-suckers term it, him who made you buck or whimper, is a nest of worms now and in our possession. Did you see the bollocks, Brian? I did, I thought them very mean and shrivelled little blobs, no parasite would touch them I WISH I COULD BE MORE OFFENSIVE I REALLY DO.
(She is rigid.)
Oh, don’t stand there like a mask of honour, I shall slap you. Did you swallow him or is that against the scriptures? I shall slap her if she looks like that!

BRADSHAW: How would you have me look?

BALL: Not like that!

ROAST: His body is to be hung in London. His head spiked and exhibited.

BRADSHAW: Why?

ROAST: It was in the King’s conditions. He would not return without his father’s murderers be on display.

BALL: There is a hole in your stocking, you slag.

BRADSHAW: How long before I can collect and bury him?

ROAST: There is no possibility of burial.

BRADSHAW: What?

ROAST: The pieces must be left to freely disintegrate.

BRADSHAW: What!

BALL: There is a hole in your stocking, I said.

BRADSHAW: That is so disgusting! What?

BALL: No, it is the hole that is disgusting, with ...

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• Halftitle
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Content
• Victory
• The Europeans
• The Possibilities
• Scenes From an Execution