Doctor Scroggy's War (NHB Modern Plays)

Howard Brenton

• Verlag: Nick Hern Books
• Jahr: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780015026
• Thema: Littérature
• Thema: Théâtre

An epic, hilarious and moving play that takes a sideways look at the First World War.

1915. Jack Twigg, twenty-one years old, enlists in the London Regiment and goes on a journey he never imagined - nor did the rest of the world. On his way, he meets the pioneering medic Harold Gillies, who saves his life and his sanity. And who is the mysterious Doctor Scroggy who appears at night in Gillies' hospital dispensing champagne to the patients?

Doctor Scroggy's War premiered at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in September 2014.

ACT ONE

Scene One

Aldershot 1915. A golf course.

HAROLD GILLIES – tall, fit, bald, in the uniform of an army major – is on a tee. He has a large driver club in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other. His large, battered doctor’s bag is a distance away.

GILLIES (aside). Play golf. Good for my arm, stiff elbow. I got the elbow when I was eleven, got its stiffness, I mean. I saw one of my aunts on the lavatory, was terrified, fled and fell downstairs. No ill effects, don’t know about the aunt. Now, driving off.

He puts the beer bottle down.

Theory is – ball elevation. Hit the golf ball at a greater height, catching the full upward force of the swing of the club. And, after many experiments, I find the perfect height for the ball is: top of a beer bottle.

He takes a golf ball from his pocket and puts the ball on the neck of the beer bottle. He adopts a driving position to one side of the beer bottle and demonstrates in slow motion.

See, the club head swings through… rises, impact and… wallop! Right.

He squares up to hit the ball.

Fore!

He is about to hit the ball. Enter a handlebar-moustached MEMBER OF THE SIDCUP GOLF CLUB COMMITTEE. He is incensed.

MEMBER. Gillies, in God’s name, glass all over the tees!

GILLIES. Galileo understood.

MEMBER. Galla-who?

GILLIES. He wasn’t all down a telescope.

MEMBER. What in hell’s name are you talking about?

GILLIES. Galileo Galilei, father of mechanics as well as astronomer, in his great work, the Discorsi, calculated the transfer of energy from one object to another, as in head of golf club to golf ball.

Squares up again.

MEMBER. There have been complaints! It’s dangerous and damn inconsiderate!

GILLIES. Can’t improve a golf swing without breaking eggs.

MEMBER. You’re going to drive golf balls off eggs?

GILLIES. Metaphor, old man. As in omelettes. Fore!

He hits the golf ball into the auditorium. The beer bottle shatters. [NB: the ball is a ping-pong ball, the bottle made of sugar glass?] They stare out into the auditorium.

MEMBER (stunned). Smithers.

GILLIES. What do you think, dear heart? Two hundred and thirty-five, forty yards?

MEMBER. No, no, can’t be having this, Gillies! This… experimenting! It’s not golf, it’s not… natural!

As they talk, CATHERINE BLACK, a hospital sister in uniform, rides on to the stage on a bicycle and dismounts.

CATHERINE. Major Gillies!

GILLIES. Nothing more natural than human experimentation. Disaster though it can be.

MEMBER. As committee chairman, it is my duty to warn you. Any more glass on the tees and you will be barred.

CATHERINE. Major Gillies. It’s the Lieutenant.

MEMBER. Do I make myself clear?

GILLIES stares at him as if he does not know who he is, then turns back to CATHERINE. Then with rapid movement he collects his bag.

GILLIES. Hop me on, sister.

GILLIES climbs onto the bike with her. She pedals them away.

MEMBER. Gillies… Look, hold on… Gillies!

GILLIES. Glass! Mind the tyres!

GILLIES and CATHERINE exit on the bicycle.

MEMBER (aside). They say he’s brilliant. But the last thing a golf club needs on the fairway is a bloody genius. I mean, there is a war on.

He exits.

Scene Two

Two VAD nurses – MEGAN JONES, Welsh, and TILLY HOPE, posh – enter, pulling on a hospital bed at speed. The LIEUTENANT is lying on it. His face is covered with a dressing saturated in blood. He is crying out, a heart-rending, strangulated, repeated cry.

LIEUTENANT. Ah! Ah! Ah!

Then he is silent. His body arches in pain.

MEGAN. Lieutenant!

TILLY. Robert!

MEGAN. Lieutenant!

TILLY. Oxygen…

MEGAN. Can’t, got no face has he, has he, no face, no face…

TILLY. Robert, please, oh, Robert…

They freeze. The LIEUTENANT is still.

GILLIES enters running, pulling on a surgical gown.
CATHERINE enters after him.

GILLIES (to the ANNIE). How long?

TILLY. Mask for the oxygen, got no face…

CATHERINE. Pull yourself together, girl! How long has it been?

MEGAN. Half a minute…

GILLIES. Bobby old thing, I want no nonsense here!

He leaps on the bed and is astride the LIEUTENANT.

CATHERINE. What…

GILLIES. Closed cardiac massage, dearie. Tad controversial but so is death.

The NURSES step back. GILLIES pumps the LIEUTENANT’s chest many times.

Bobby!… Not… in… this… hospital…

No reaction. He stops. He gets off the bed, exhausted.

CATHERINE. Major Gillies…

GILLIES. Imagine opening the chest, and holding the heart in your hand… and giving direct cardiac massage, a rhythmic squeeze… wouldn’t that be something, my dears, wouldn’t that be… a lovely thing. (A beat.) Time?

CATHERINE looks at a watch pinned to her.

CATHERINE. 3.22 p.m.

GILLIES. Record it.

CATHERINE. Yes, Major.

GILLIES walks away from the bed. His gown is smeared with blood.

(To TILLY and MEGAN, meaning the body.) Nurses, lay him out.

MEGAN. I can’t…

TILLY. No, I…

CATHERINE (irritated). Oh, do toughen up, girls. Never mind, I’ll...