Monsieur Ibrahim And The Flowers of the Qu'ran

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

• Éditeur: Methuen Drama
• Année: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781408153840
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Literature
• Sous-sujet: Drama

Internationally acclaimed play of cross-cultural friendship

Paris in the 1960s. Thirteen-year-old Moses lives in the shadow of his less-than loving father. When he's caught stealing from wise old shopkeeper Monsieur Ibrahim, he discovers an unlikely friend and a whole new world. Together they embark on a journey that takes them from the streets of Paris to the whirling dervishes of the Golden Crescent.

This delightful, moving play has already been a huge hit in Paris and New York. Performed in thirteen countries and published in twelve languages, it is also an award-winning film starring Omar Sharif.

Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Qur'an received its UK premiere at the Bush Theatre on 17 January 2006.

Characters

Moses
Monsieur Ibrahim

The two actors taking the above parts play all other characters mentioned in the script.

Moses comes on stage to Arabian music, listens, remembers, slowly starts to dance, to whirl like a Sufi dervish, enjoying it.

His dance is interrupted by questions his invisible Father shouts out.

Father (off) Moses, have you washed up?

Moses (stops dancing) Yes, Father. (Starts dancing again.)

Father (off) Moses, have you done the shopping?

Moses (stops dancing) Yes, Father! (Starts darning again.)

Father (off) Moses, have you ironed my shirts?

Moses Yes, Father!

He stops dancing altogether. Change of lighting. Moses makes contact with the audience, addresses them directly as he will for all following sections of narration.

Moses When I was eleven, I broke into my piggy-bank and went whoring. My piggy was made of puke-coloured china with a slot to let coins in but not out. My father had chosen that one-way piggy-bank because it met his philosophy: money should be saved and not spent.

There were two hundred francs inside the piggy. Four months’ work. You see … one morning, four months earlier, while I was cleaning the flat before going to school, my father said –

Father comes in.

Father Moses, I don’t understand … there is money missing … From now on, you’ll write down everything you spend on groceries on the notepad in the kitchen.

Moses In other words, it wasn’t enough being yelled at in school and at home, it wasn’t enough cleaning up, studying, ironing, cooking, carrying the groceries or living alone in a dark, loveless flat, being the slave rather than the son of a no-client, no-wife lawyer, I also had to be taken for a thief!

As long as I was suspected of stealing, I might as well do it.

So, there were two hundred francs inside the piggy. That was the going rate for a girl on the rue du Paradis. That was the going rate for manhood.

He rehearses what he is going to say to the prostitutes in front of an imaginary mirror, trying to be as cool as possible, but really he is a little nervous.

‘It’s hot – do you want to go upstairs?’ (Different tones of voice.)
‘It’s hot – do you want to go upstairs?’ ‘It’s hot – how much?’

On the rue du Paradis

Moses It’s hot – do you want to go upstairs?

First Girl Have you got any ID?

Moses No – but I am sixteen! Honest!

First Girl I don’t think so, darling.

Moses (as he walks away) Oh, there’s a new girl!

He shows her the money. She smiles.

Second Girl And you say you’re sixteen?

Moses Turned sixteen this morning.

Second Girl Let’s go upstairs, then.

Moses I could hardly believe it – she was twenty-two, she was old and she was all mine. She told me how to wash myself, and then how to make love. Of course I already knew how, but I let her show me to make her feel better. All through it, I thought I was going to pass out.

Second Girl (gently stroking his hair after they have finished) You have to come back and bring me a little present.

Moses A little present! I ran back to the flat, I rushed into my room.

He looks frantically for a present, rejecting various items before settling on his teddy bear. He rushes back to the Girl.

Moses Here is my present.

He hands his teddy to the Girl, who is bemused, then touched.

During Moses’ next lines. Monsieur Ibrahim sets up his shop.

Moses It was about the same time that I met Monsieur Ibrahim.

Every day I’d go shopping and cook meals. I only bought cans. I bought them daily, not because they’d be fresh, no, but because my father only left me a couple of coins in the morning.

When I started stealing from my father to punish him for suspecting me, I also started stealing from Monsieur Ibrahim.

Monsieur Ibrahim had always been old. As far back as anyone on the rue Bleue could remember. Monsieur Ibrahim had always tended his grocery shop; from eight a.m. till the middle of the night, he sat propped up between his till and the cleaning fluids, one leg in the aisle, the other under the matchboxes, a grey apron over his white shirt, with his ivory teeth under a pencil-thin moustache, pistachio eyes, green and brown, lighter than his brown, wisdom-spotted skin.

It was generally considered that Monsieur Ibrahim was a wise man. Probably because for over forty years he’d been the one Arab in a Jewish street. Probably because he smiled a lot and said little. Probably because he seemed immune to the restlessness of ordinary Parisians and never moved, like a branch grafted onto his stool. He never replenished his displays in front of anyone and disappeared between midnight and eight a.m. – God knows where.

In Monsieur Ibrahim’s shop.

Moses In order to steal money from my ...