People, Places and Things

Duncan Macmillan

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350200616
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Playwriting

"Macmillan doesn't shy away from difficult questions about addiction and recovery and, rightly, doesn't answer them... this is a bold, timely and searching play" - Financial Times Emma was having the time of her life. Now she's in rehab. Her first step is to admit that she has a problem. But the problem isn't with Emma, it's with everything else. She needs to tell the truth. But she's smart enough to know that there's no such thing. When intoxication feels like the only way to survive the modern world, how can she ever sober up? People, Places & Things premiered at the National Theatre in 2015 before transferring to London's West End and St. Ann's Warehouse in New York. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features a brand new introduction by Naomi Obeng.

ACT ONE

As the lights fade, the sounds of a theatre auditorium increase. Mobile phones, coughing, chattering and general sounds of anticipation. It builds to a cacophony.

Darkness. Chaos.

Suddenly the lights snap up and the sounds cease. We are in the same theatre, but at a different time. A play is in progress, the final act of Chekhov’s The Seagull. A Naturalistic, period set of a study which was once a drawing-room. Doors left and right. A French window opens onto a terrace. It is raining.

Evening. It is dark. One shaded lamp is alight. Trees rustle outside and wind howls softly in the chimneys.

She sits on an ottoman in the centre of the stage next to KONSTANTIN GAVRILOVICH TREPLEV. The lights have snapped up mid-sentence.

Aware of her surroundings, she quickly pours the powder onto the reception desk.

KONSTANTIN:

for ninety years on this earth. My youth robbed from me.

EMMA looks around the stage and out into the auditorium. It is as if she’s just come-to and is trying to establish where she is.

I’ve cursed you Nina. Ripped up your photographs and letters. But it’s no use. I see your face everywhere. I say your name. I kiss the ground you walk on. I’m bound to you forever. And now you’re here.

He waits for EMMA to speak. After a while he decides that she’s not going to say her line, so continues.

I’m sad. Lonely. Utterly alone and cold as if I’ve been imprisoned underground. And everything I write is so bleak.

KONSTANTIN takes EMMA’s hand.

Nina. Stay here. I beg you. Stay here or let me go with you.

For a moment, EMMA looks into KONSTANTIN’s eyes. She looks down at their interlocked hands.

	,
	Nina?

Suddenly, EMMA stands and quickly prepares to leave, grabbing her coat and putting it on.

	Nina, for God’s sake, Nina.
EMMA:	My carriage is waiting. Don’t walk me out. Can I have some water?
KONSTANTIN:	Where will you go?

He pours some water.

EMMA:	Is Irina Arkadin here?
KONSTANTIN:	Yes. Uncle was taken ill and we telegraphed / for her.

EMMA advances to KONSTANTIN angrily, interrupting him.

E...