The Author

Tim Crouch

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781840029505
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435512
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Winner of the 2010 Whiting Award for best new play. Winner of the 2010 Total Theatre Award for Innovation. Nominated in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2010.
Settle back into the warmth of the theatre. Relax as the story unfolds. For you. With you. Of you. A story of hope, violence and exploitation. Laugh with the actors, tap your feet to the music, turn to your neighbour. You're here.
The Author tells the story of another play: a violent, shocking and abusive play written by a playwright called Tim Crouch and performed at the Royal Court Theatre. It charts the effect that play had on the two actors who acted in it and an audience member who watched it. The Author explores our responsibilities to what we choose to look at in the world and how we choose to act accordingly. Performed within its audience, it is a brilliantly inventive and theatrical study of what we deem acceptable in the name of Art.

the author

An audience facing an audience in two banks of seats.
No stage area in between.
An easy, playful presence.
No sense and every sense of a play beginning.
Blank underscoring (_______) represents the names of any number of audience members that CHRIS has effortlessly and gracefully elicited and learned. We should get to know quite a few names over the course of the play.
There is freedom in CHRIS’s speech to improvise if needed.
Space.
CHRIS	I love this. This is great, isn’t this great? I love this! This! All this! When I came in – When I came in and saw this, just this, and I thought, Oh Wow! Didn’t you? Did you? Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you thought Oh Jesus! Did you? Oh Jesus Christ, maybe!
Space.
	This is such a versatile space! Isn’t it versatile? It’s amazing what they can do. They can do anything! Can’t they?
Space.
	I’m Chris. I’m Chris and you are? Hello! What’s your name? Do you love this, ______? Our knees touching! Don’t you? Who’ll you be next to! I’m next to you!! What’s your name? That’s beautiful. You’re beautiful! Isn’t ______ beautiful? Everyone?
	I’ll shut up. I’ll stop.
	Someone else go!
Space.
	Is everyone all right?
	Are you?
Space.
	What are we supposed to do, I wonder? Do you know?
	Sounds good, doesn’t it?
	Does it?
	I have some cuttings in my bag. I have a preview in the Metro/a review in the Standard! I see everything I do! You can’t keep me away! Shall I read you it? Here, let me read it. It’s not as though anything’s happening, is it! It’s not as though we’re going to miss anything!
	Here.
CHRIS reads from a newspaper – a review or a preview of this play.
	Yes, blah. Yes, well! Doesn’t say anything really! Does it?
Space.
	Everyone’s looking at me! My face isn’t ready for this level of attention! Don’t look at me! Don’t!
	I’ve only just had the stitches out!! The bandages off! Look! Almost good as new!
Space.
	Oh, we’re all so gorgeous, aren’t we? Look at us! Look!
	I think we’re better looking than actors, don’t you? Do you, ______? Do you? Look at us! Look! We’re gorgeous!
	Maybe not better looking… But more realistic! More chance of a snog from one of us than from the Prince of Denmark, don’t you think! Do you, ______?
	And you are looking at the kind of man who likes to hang around the stage doors! Don’t you, ______? I waited for ages for Ralph Fiennes once after some French play! An incurable romantic, I am! I can’t help it! Aren’t you? ______? No? All that glamour? I can’t resist it!
	Making up for a thoroughly normal life. Do you have a normal life, ______? Do you? What do you do? That’s fantastic! Isn’t that fantastic? Not normal at all? Is it? What about you? What do you do? That’s fantastic, too! Isn’t it?
	I think it is!
Space.
	Oh, we’re gorgeous!
	But I often think – I think – I think that sometimes the most fantastical – the most made up thing in the theatre is us! Don’t you, ______? I saw a play last year. And I remember thinking, ‘that writer has imagined me’. I’ve been imagined! Poorly imagined! The audience has been badly written!
	We’re all going to have to pretend ourselves! Do you know that feeling, ______?
Space.
	And the actors just go on and on and on, don’t they? About the state of the world or why they can’t get laid. Or they smash each other’s brains in! And we just let them, don’t we? That’s what we expect of them, isn’t it ______! It’s what we love, isn’t it! We wouldn’t be here! No one ever asks them to stop, do they? And the lights flash on and off and there’s loud music and shouting.
	I can’t do flashing lights!
	And everything’s always so promising before the play begins! Before they open their mouths. That’s the best moment, ______. We’re all so expectant! We’re all being so lovely!! And then the lights go down!
	There’s always hope, isn’t there, ______. Hope is what brings us back, isn’t it? Again and again and again. The hopeful moment! Are you hopeful, ______? Where are you with hope, ______?
	Without hope, what is there? Do you agree, ______?
	Look at us. Look at all our lonely, hopeful hearts!! Sitting here. Staring out! Hoping for something to happen. Waiting for someone to talk to us. Really talk!
	Are you with someone, ______? Are you? Are you on your own? Are we all on our own? Poor old us, don’t we look pathetic! Don’t we, ______? Waiting for something to happen!
A beat.
An audience member in the middle of a block gets up and leaves. They are helped to leave by an usher.
	You say something then!
The door closing.
	YOU FUCKING SAY SOMETHING!!!
A beat.
Music plays.
Houselights go out, one by one, slowly, visibly. The audience becomes beautifully lit, slowly, visibly. Their light contained on them, with darkness all around.
	Music stops.
Space.
TIM	I’m led downstairs by a young woman with her hair pulled back and held in place with a large plastic tortoiseshell hair grip – like sharp teeth chomping down on the back of her head! Ha! She’s wearing a dress that makes her look a little like a nurse. She looks really clean! Like she’d smell really clean. I think about her being naked. Even at this time, in this state, I think about her naked and stretched out for me! Can you imagine? I look at the shape of her breasts. I think about the weight of her breasts.
	She asks if I have ever used one of these before and I say no. I say that this was a gift. I was given a token as a gift. A voucher. From the theatre, I tell her, as if she might be even remotely interested. The sound designer gave us tokens on the last night of a play I wrote, I say! ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Thanks
• Author
• Contents
• Characters
• Note
• the author