Teacup in a Storm

Noëlle Janaczewska

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781760622633
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The jungle of bureaucracy, the drudgery of cleaning up yet another shattered plate, the isolation of responsibility. Caring for someone with a disability or enduring health need is no fairytale. But in this mix of documentary and fictional narrative, Noëlle Janaczewska weaves a story of heroines and dragons — and battles fought both inside and out. Teacup in a Storm is a window into the largely unseen world of carers and the power of love and determination.%##CHAR13##%Winner of the 2017 AWGIE Award for Community and Youth Theatre.

ACT ONE

YVONNE loads laundry from a bucket into a washing machine. At the bottom of the bucket she finds a toddler’s yellow knitted sweater. She holds the precious garment. The tiny sweater is illuminated by a light inside the bucket.

YVONNE returns it to the bucket and switches off the light.

▼▼▼▼▼

Glitter. Spangles. Garish lighting.

Deborah’s ‘The Ugly Sister’ is a framing narrative written as a connected series of late-night, sometimes serious, often blackly comic, monologues.

DEBORAH (THE UGLY SISTER):

This one hot summer day, we all went to Aunty Rachel’s for a barbeque: Mum and Dad, my older brother Sam, me and my baby sister Ruth. And Ruth started crying as soon as we got there. For no obvious reason. And the crying became screaming. And the screaming escalated. Mum tried to comfort her, but Ruth kept pushing her away. And screaming louder than ever. Then Mum got upset because she couldn’t soothe her, and had no idea what was wrong.

It was the first time I saw my mother cry—but it wasn’t the last.

Even then, at the age of seven or eight, I knew that the other grown-ups were looking on and making their own judgments.

What I didn’t understand was that our lives—mine and Sam’s and our parents’—would never be the same again.

Because of Ruth.

My ugly sister.

I resented Ruth, because until she came along and wrecked everything, I was Cinderella in a sparkly dress.

Needy, greedy Ruth sucked up time and energy. There was nothing left over for me and Sam.

When I was fourteen I bought a lock, borrowed tools, and fitted it to my bedroom door. I was fed up coming home from school to find that Ruth had messed up my clothes, destroyed my science project or ripped posters off the walls.

Mum and Dad refused point blank to secure her room with a deadbolt.

‘She’s your sister. Not a wild animal.’

So I turned the key and retreated to my own safe haven away from the chaos.

Left home to get away from it as soon as I could. I was sick to death of fucking autism.

▼▼▼▼▼

A waiting room.

In the following scene the lines are unattributed, but designed for two or more voices.

Magazine?

Magazine?

No thanks.

Sure?

Wouldn’t mind a cup of tea—

There’s a machine for that.

Right.

Wait for tests.

Wait for more tests.

Next.

Can. You. Make. A. Cup. Of. Tea?

Next.

Can. You. Draw. The. Hands. On. A. Clock?

Wait for results.

Excuse me—?

There’s a three- to six-month wait.

That’s a long time.

Shall I put you on the list?

▼▼▼▼▼

LINDSEY:

I care for my twenty-three-year-old daughter who has quite a severe anxiety disorder but to the point where it’s crippling … she very rarely leaves the house and when she does it’s with great difficulty.

When I’m feeling good I see it as a journey … but on a bad day … [after a laugh] on a bad day I hate the world and I want to kill everyone in it.

I didn’t think I’d be still looking after my twenty-three-year-old daughter at home like a two-year-old … I did think that by now she would have been independent, that there might be grandchildren … But it’s been a gradual loss. I started off thinking she was going to be dux of the school, and now my hope is if she could get a little job in a shop like Woolworths by the time she’s thirty …

I’ve learnt how to shift my values too, and not see success in terms of how society measures success …

If she can’t sleep she gets into a panic and that quickly escalates into a psychotic rage where she will scream at me, at the world in general … and there have been occasions where I’ve had to call the police or ambulance, or the neighbours have called the police because there’s such a racket.

When she sleeps late, that’s my time to myself, so I often have two hours in the morning, that’s my time. While I’m washing up, doing the washing, cleaning up a bit … I enjoy that part of the day because I do have it to myself.

Watching your child suffering, that’s probably the hardest part of it. But then to be met with callousness, especially on the part of people who are supposed to be those caring for my daughter … people who are being paid to care but couldn’t care less.

Without the disability … we would be different people. And she is more than just her disability too … But if I had a magic wand that could take her disability away, yes, I would take it away in an instant, but … leave the lessons that have been learnt.

When she’s good, she’s very, very good—but when she is not she is horrid. And when she’s good and in a stable mood she’s actually quite good company. I like her and I enjoy her company and I think it’s very, very sad that none of the rest of the world gets to see what she has to offer it.

On a really bad day I do think perhaps I shouldn’t have had children … so I do think, God, if I just hadn’t had her I’d have money, time, health, freedom—But, but, but I do think I would have missed out on a huge part of life. That’s on a good day.

Some would think I’m an idiot … some would think I’m a saint.

▼▼▼▼▼

In the following scene the lines are unattributed, but designed for two or more voices.

Old Mother Hubbard lived in a cupboard—

No. No, she didn’t. It just felt like that.

Into the woods and out of the woods and happily ever after—

I don’t think so.

They all lived happily ever after.

No, they didn’...