Howard Barker: Plays Two

Howard Barker

• Editore: Oberon Books
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849433471
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Literatura
• Categoria: Arte dramático británico

Includes the plays The Castle, Gertrude - The Cry, Animals in Paradise and 13 Objects. Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. The plays in this volume examine collisions of culture, gender and creed at moments of turmoil, developing the tragic form Barker defines as Theatre of Catastrophe. The Castle is set at the end of Crusades and describes the clashes that occur when returning soldiers bring an Arab architect home with them as a prisoner. Barker's abiding interest in interrogating the great classics for their 'silences' is shown in Gertrude - The Cry, his re-writing of the Hamlet story. Scarcely examined in Shakespeare, the passion of Gertrude for Claudius is made the centre of this harrowing tragedy, casting new light on the personality of Hamlet himself. Animals in Paradise was commissioned by the Swedish and Danish governments to celebrate their connection by bridge, a symbolic finish to centuries of antagonism. Barker's unexpected treatment of the theme provoked unrest on its first showing. 13 Objects movingly reveals the investment we make in inanimate things, their power to unsettle us, and how their talismanic qualities license new ways of seeing the world.

GERTRUDE
The Cry

For the Fraction

Characters

GERTRUDE, a Queen
CLAUDIUS, a Prince
CASCAN, Servant to Gertrude
HAMLET, an Heir
ISOLA, Mother of Claudius
RAGUSA, a Young Woman
ALBERT, a Duke of Mecklenburg

1

The orchard at Elsinore. A king asleep on the ground.

GERTRUDE: (Entering.) I should
Surely
I should
Me

CLAUDIUS: (Entering.) No

GERTRUDE: Me
Let me

CLAUDIUS: It must be me who

GERTRUDE: Why not me

CLAUDIUS: Me who

GERTRUDE: HE IS MY HUSBAND WHY NOT ME
(Pause.)

CLAUDIUS: Because he is your husband it must be me

GERTRUDE: Let me kill
Oh let me kill for you
(Pause.)

CLAUDIUS: I’m killing
Me
(Pause.)

GERTRUDE: KILL MY HUSBAND THEN KILL HIM FOR ME
(A fractional pause.)

CLAUDIUS: Strip

GERTRUDE: Strip?

CLAUDIUS: Naked

GERTRUDE: Strip naked yes

CLAUDIUS: Let me see the reason I am killing

GERTRUDE: (Tearing off her clothes.) Yes
Yes

CLAUDIUS: And if he stirs
If his eyes open in his agony
Show him the reason he is dying
Let him see what I have stolen
What was his
And what now belongs to me
THE THING
THE THING
LET THE DYING DOG’S EYES SWIM YOUR
(Pause.)
He’s not a dog
(He shrugs.)
I called him a dog

GERTRUDE: Do it now

CLAUDIUS: If anyone’s a dog

GERTRUDE: DO IT NOW

CLAUDIUS: It’s me
(GERTRUDE positions herself above the head of the sleeping man, tilted, provocative.)

GERTRUDE: Poison him
(CLAUDIUS goes to kiss GERTRUDE. She shuts her eyes, averts her face.)
Poison him
(CLAUDIUS takes the phial from his clothing. He kneels by the sleeping man. He pours the fluid into the man’s ear. GERTRUDE seems to vomit in her ecstasy. Her cry mingles with the cry of the sleeping man who shudders.)
Fuck me
Oh fuck me
(CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE couple above the dying man. All three utter, a music of extremes. A servant enters holding a garment, and attends.)

2

CASCAN: All ecstasy makes ecstasy go running to a further place that is its penalty we know this how well we know this still we would not abolish ecstasy would we we would not say this ever-receding quality in ecstasy makes it unpalatable on the contrary we run behind it limping staggering I saw it there I saw it there
(He laughs.)
A haunting mirage on the rim of life
(He extends the gown for GERTRUDE.)
Eventually I can’t help thinking eventually it lures us over a cliff so what why not a cliff is a cliff worse than a bed a stinking bed inside a stinking hospital no give me the cliff do put this on the cliff every time your nakedness is so perfect hide it hide it keep it for the dark or these rare acts Madame
(GERTRUDE goes to CASCAN and is enclosed in the gown.)
And what magnificence your cry a cry I am if I may say so not only familiar with but something of a connoisseur of its varieties this cry I heard beyond the orchard wall and marvelled at its depth its resonance I do not honestly expect to hear its like again what could give birth to such a cry a dying husband an impatient lover supremely beautiful
(GERTRUDE weeps.)
But unrepeatable surely
(Her shoulders heave in her grief.)
Yes
Yes
We are surely near to the cliff now oh so close to the cliff

GERTRUDE: (Wailing.) MY HUSBAND

CASCAN: Yes

GERTRUDE: MY HUSBAND
(She lifts her hands helplessly.)
OH HOW I LOVED MY HUSBAND

CASCAN: Yes
Yes

GERTRUDE: Little boy
Oh little boy
(CASCAN and CLAUDIUS watch the suffering of GERTRUDE. A pause.)
I called him little boy
(She recovers.)
He was ten years older than
No
Twelve not ten
Twelve
Twelve years older than
If anyone was little it was me
LITTLE GIRL
That would have made more sense I think
(She gathers up her garments.)
A sweet love silly possibly some loves are silly others find them irritating can you see my shoe simplicity offends the world and we were very simple shoe blue shoe ALL MY SHOES ARE BLUE NOW YOU INSIST ON IT
(She smiles at CLAUDIUS through her tears. He brings the missing shoe to her. Leaning on CASCAN with one arm, she lifts her foot. CLAUDIUS fits the shoe. She turn to him.)
OH WERE YOU EVER STRONGER IN YOUR LIFE

CLAUDIUS: Never

GERTRUDE: STRONGER
DEEPER
TIGHTER THAN A BOW

CLAUDIUS: Never
Never

GERTRUDE: Me neither
I FLOODED TO MY KNEES
(They hold a profound gaze. She pulls away and strides off, trembling, erect…)

CLAUDIUS: (Watching her departure.) She cannot walk straight
She
Her knees
She’s all
(His hand has travelled to his mouth.)
Oh the religion of it
The religion

CASCAN: (Who has not watched.) I’ll call dinner
(CLAUDIUS seems not to hear.)
I’ll call dinner
When he doesn’t come I’ll look for him
First in the stables
After the stables I’ll come here

CLAUDIUS: Yes
(CASCAN goes to leave, stops. He looks at the body on the ground.)

CASCAN: He could not meet her it was sad the way he could not meet her at the table in the bed this wandering this travelling but never meeting her I wonder if it will be the same with you she changes she is not identical even a sunset might profoundly alter her a passing cloud perhaps

CLAUDIUS: I meet her
I meet her very well
(CLAUDIUS goes out. CASCAN inclines his head in a bow. The sound of a deep bell.)

3

HAMLET examines the face of his dead father, formally displayed. He lets fall the cloth that covers the face.

HAMLET: I expected to be more moved than this
(Pause.)
Cascades
Storms of
Torrents of emotion
Never mind these things will come later when I least expect t...