Who Do We Think We Are?

Sonja Linden

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• Print ISBN: 9781906582890
• eBook ISBN: 9781906582876
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A kaleidoscope of stories about war, displacement, revolution and liberation taking us on an emotional journey across three continents. Based on the actors' personal and family experiences, the stories interweave and overlap, exploring moments of joy, sadness and laughter set against key historical events over the last hundred years. Poignant, moving, funny, inspiring, this is the first piece of work created by the Visible Ensemble, dedicated to putting older performers and their rich lives centre stage.

PART 1

Mostly though not entirely around the time of the First World War

1. SKYPE. Banbury/Tokyo 2014

Togo, Narrator, Togo’s wife, Yoko (Voice of Togo’s sister).

Togo’s living room in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Togo enters stage right carrying a laptop. He crosses the stage and sets it up on a table, under the following voiceover. Narrator enters stage left and observes him, then delivers the translation of Yoko’s voiceover.

YOKO

ある日、男は聞こうと思った。
[Aruhi nêsan-ni kikôto omotta otokogairu]

NARRATOR

One day a man decides to ask a question.

YOKO

いままで聞いたことのない質問。
[Imamade kiitakotononai shitsumon]

NARRATOR

A question that he has not thought to ask before.

YOKO

答えられるのは、家族の中でたったひとり生き残っている人。
[Kotaerarerunowa kazokuno nakade tatta hitori ikinokotteiru hito]

NARRATOR

And now there’s only one person in the family still alive who can give him the answer…

YOKO

姉の洋子。
[Aneno Yôko]

NARRATOR

His sister Yoko.

TOGO

That man is me. (Stands and bows)

Enter Togo’s English wife, wearing a potter’s apron, and carrying a sake flask. She sits on a chair next to him, ready to join in the Skype.

YOKO

役者で、夫で、父親で、洋子の弟。
[Yakushade, ottode, chichioyade, Yôko no otôto]

NARRATOR

Actor. Husband. Father. Brother of Yoko.

We hear the sound of a Skype call being made. On the screen we now see a small image of Togo’s face in the corner of the screen and a Skype logo silhouette for his sister as the Skype call begins.

TOGO

もしもし、洋子？聞こえる？
[Moshimoshi, Yôko? Kikoeru?]

2. QUESTION. Ikaria 2014

Narrators, John, his aunt.

Seagull sounds.

NARRATOR 1

On another day, in another place and at another time, a different man decides to ask a question.

NARRATOR 2

Not from his sister but from his father’s sister.

NARRATOR 3

It’s a question that has occurred to him before.

NARRATOR 1

But which he hasn’t asked till now.

NARRATOR 3

Why?

NARRATOR 2

Perhaps because he doesn’t get to see his aunt that often.

NARRATOR 1

Or, perhaps it’s just because he’s getting older and he senses his own mortality.

NARRATOR 3

Or hers! She’s 99 years old.

NARRATOR 2

That’s nothing where she comes from, on the Greek Island of Ikaria…

NARRATOR 1

… people live to be a hundred and still go about their business of farming or fishing.

NARRATOR 3

Maybe he’s come to find the secret of longevity.

JOHN (to his aunt)

Thea Stamatoula? Fenese kalla.

NARRATOR 2

Aunt Stamatoula? You’re looking well.

His aunt nods in reply.

JOHN

Eethela na se aroteeso kati gia ton patera mou, o adelfos sou.

NARRATOR 2

I’ve been meaning to ask you something about my father, your brother.

JOHN (to the narrators)

I couldn’t exactly ask him myself – he died when I was only two. (To his aunt) Kserees pios eeime, etsi then eeine?

NARRATOR 2

You know who I am, right?

Aunt smiles and pulls out a baseball cap and waves it at John under the next speech.

JOHN

My God, you’ve still got that! (Unable to fit his head into it) My head’s grown a bit since I was 10. (To narrators) I heard she talked to it after I went back to the States. She missed me. I reminded her of my father, the brother who went away. (To aunt) I wanted to ask you… (Aunt beckons for him to speak up.) I wanted to ask you about the day my Dad left the island. I don’t even know exactly what year that was. Do you know? (Bending an ear to his aunt’s lips then relaying her answer to everyone, surprised) 1914!

The company break into a 1914 ragtime dance which segues into the next scene.

3. IT’S 1914 AND…

Andrew, Imola, Jasmina, Togo, Norma.

ANDREW

1914 and my grandfather Horace is trying to break into the acting profession in the southern counties of England. Two year later though, and he will find himself in the battle of the Somme, fighting in the ranks of the Hampshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion. He’ll be lucky to survive, and probably even luckier still to get pneumonia, which will get him out of the freezing trenches and back to hospital in Southampton, where he will meet my grandmother, working there as a nurse.

IMOLA

1914 and my grandfather, Béla, leaves his village in Transylvania in Hungary to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army. He will fight the Italians in the famous battle of Doberdo, a very bloody battle with hand-to-hand fighting. 20,000 will die. The Italians win.

JASMINA

1914 and my English grandfather is a captain in the Royal Fusiliers. Three years later he will find himself lying in a ditch filled with corpses somewhere on the Western Front. When they try to pull him out, his arm drops off – gangrene. He’s patched up and sent back into battle only to be shot in the lung. Strapped for time the doctor decides it’s quicker to remove the whole lung, bullet an’ all. Cuts him open – can’t find the other one. “Oh dear, better leave that lung in then.” Stitches him up again and my grandfather – later to become Colonel Sir Eric Norman Spencer Crankshaw K.C.M.G. – lives on with one arm and one lung for another 50 years. Good old Crankie.

TOGO

1914 and my uncle has been exempted from military service as a medical student. Four years later he will be sent as a doctor to Siberia with the Japanese army, who are fighting on the side of the allies. My uncle is surprised to find his first patients are women – Japanese prostitutes sent by the government to service the soldiers. They don’t want their soldiers to catch venereal diseases from the local Siberian women. Now my uncle understands why he’s been sent there. He’s a gynaecologist.

NORMA

1914, and my father Eric is part of the crowd watching King George and Queen Mary...

Table of contents

• Who Do We Think We Are?
• Sonja Linden, The Writer
• Copyright
• Title
• On Creating
• On Being Visible
• Scene List
• Prologue
• Part 1: Mostly though not entirely around the time of the First World War
• Part 2: Mostly around the time of the Second World War
• Part 3: Mostly though not entirely in 1950s
• Part 4: Revolutionary times: the 1960s, 70s, and 80s
• Part 5: “Ripeness is all” Mostly the 21st Century.
• Epilogue