Cruise Control

David Williamson

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781925359374
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre

Three philandering, bickering and workaholic couples board a cruise ship travelling from London to New York for seven days of marital healing.

ACT ONE

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The play opens in the cabin of RICHARD and FIONA MANTON as they get ready to go to the evening meal.

Simultaneously on another part of the stage, CHARLIE sets the table for the impending evening meal. He sings softly to himself in Filipino. A mournful song.

RICHARD: You’re joking.

FIONA: Unfortunately not.

RICHARD: The steward told you?

FIONA: Yes.

RICHARD: We have fixed seating for the whole voyage?

FIONA: Only for the evening meal. Breakfast and lunch we have the option of switching to the casual eating areas.

RICHARD: But the evening meal we have the same two couples with us every bloody night?

FIONA: I tried to change it, but you didn’t arrange for us to have an individual table.

RICHARD: When was that supposed to happen?

FIONA: Months ago. It was in the paperwork they sent you apparently.

RICHARD: Who has time to read all the bloody paperwork? I just assumed that we’d be able to dine where the hell we wanted to.

FIONA: Well, your assumptions, as often happens, didn’t prove to be correct.

RICHARD: I never wanted to come on this bloody cruise in any case. I wanted a cottage in France.

FIONA: Yes, so you could finish your novel.

RICHARD: And that’s not worth doing?

FIONA: Of course it is, but I wanted somewhere where you were actually here with me. Where you couldn’t wander off to the nearest bar and flirt with the girls in your perfect French accent.

RICHARD: You didn’t like my last book, did you?

FIONA: Nero’s Fiddle. I did. I told you I did.

RICHARD: And you don’t like the first five chapters of this one.

FIONA: What’s brought this on? I told you about ten times how much I like the new one.

RICHARD: You said it was bleak.

FIONA: It is. But that’s you. That’s your strength. You look at the world with complete honesty.

RICHARD: Remorseless. You said it was remorseless.

FIONA: Well-written remorselessness is good. It is darker than anything you’ve done before. That’s not a judgement. It’s a fact.

RICHARD: Why shouldn’t it be dark? Great novels are always dark. Are you joining the chorus?

FIONA: What chorus?

RICHARD: The critical chorus. ‘His early work was compelling but he’s getting darker and more convoluted’?

FIONA: No. Your work’s changing but that’s fine. You can’t write the same novel over and over. I’ve never said convoluted.

RICHARD: Experimenting with form is what you said. Translation? Convoluted.

FIONA: I didn’t ever say that.

RICHARD: That’s what you meant. Same as the chorus. Convoluted. Not perhaps inventive, playful, innovative. Not perhaps trampling on over-worn conventions and striking out in bold new directions?

She pours herself a large glass of white wine from a bottle that sits in an ice bucket and takes a gulp.

FIONA: Your later work is more profound—the reader has to work harder. And that means of course your sales will suffer, but—

She takes another gulp.

RICHARD: I’m not about to write an airport novel.

FIONA: I’m not asking you to, but as an experienced editor I’m simply making the observation that the strong narrative drive of your early work made them page-turners. You can’t have it both ways.

RICHARD: I don’t want to be a page-turner anymore.

FIONA: Then all I’m saying is that you have to live with the dr...