The Static and Blackout

Davey Anderson

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781408173435
• eBook ISBN: 9781408173442
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The Static 'We all have sick thoughts. It doesnae matter what you think, it's what you do that counts. Trouble is, my thoughts do things. Don't believe me? Just watch.' Sparky is a bright but volatile 15-year-old boy on the brink of permanent exclusion from school. Then one day he falls under the spell of a seemingly psychic girl called Siouxsie and develops his own kinetic superpower. But will it save him or push him over the edge? The Static is a coming-of-age love story about what happens when our darkest dreams come true.
Blackout 'A small room, bright lights, white walls, a metal door. Oh my God! Imagine you wake up in a jail cell and you don't know how you got there.' Blackout is the true story of a 15-year-old boy charged with attempted murder who tries to piece together the events in his life that have brought him into a secure care unit and threaten to keep him there. This short play packs a big emotional punch with its stylistic economy and razor-sharp storytelling. The Static was originally produced by ThickSkin for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and UK tour 2012. Blackout was commissioned for NT Connections and produced by ThickSkin at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010, winning the Arches Brick Award and subsequently touring the UK.

Davey Anderson

The Static

Methuen Drama

Writer’s note:

I saw him on a train. There he was wearing a giant pair of headphones playing nothing but white noise. ‘Why would someone listen to static?’ I thought, ‘What other sounds is he trying to drown out?’ The question troubled me. I became a bit obsessed. I started remembering the delusion I used to have as a teenager, the awful paranoia that my thoughts were somehow seeping out of my head. I took the same train every day for a week. I never saw him again, but I started to paint a picture of him in my mind. I even gave him a name. Sparky.

A few weeks earlier, Neil and Laura planted the seed for the story in my brain. They wanted to collaborate on a new play. And they wanted me to think about what might happen if someone’s darkest wishes came true. So I started to stalk the self-help section of the local library, in disguise, becoming fascinated and disturbed by the so-called ‘laws of attraction’. I could see the merit in positive thinking but was appalled by its ugly flipside, the implication that we bring misfortune upon ourselves by thinking bad thoughts.

Slowly the themes started to emerge: guilt, desire, mind over matter. We took these into a room with a group of actors. We explored physical ideas around magnetism and telekinetic manipulation. We developed characters brought together by a shared location, the place where we’re most susceptible to superhero fantasies – a high school.

The next step was for me to spend a week inside a real school in Port Glasgow. I sat in classes. I interviewed teachers. I ate biscuits in the staffroom. I had conversations with school kids about dark matter and gravitational time dilation. I sat in detention and let my mind wander. I came out with a story. It’s a love story, I think.

It’s also about kung fu, because the guy I saw on the train was daydreaming about kung fu. I could hear him thinking about it when his headphones slipped.

Davey Anderson July 2012

Premiere Information for The Static

The Static was first performed on 4 August 2012 at Underbelly, Edinburgh. The cast and creative team were as follows:

Siouxsie	Samantha Foley
Mrs Kelly	Pauline Lockhart
Mr Murphy	Nick Rhys
Sparky	Brian Vernel

Writer	Davey Anderson
Director & Choreographer	Neil Bettles
Lighting Designer	Simon Wilkinson
Creative Assistant	Jonnie Riordan

Photo Montage for The Static

Photos by Jonnie Riordan

Characters

Sparky, a fifteen-year-old boy

Siouxsie, a fifteen-year-old girl

Mrs Kelly, a woman in her thirties

Mr Murphy, a man in his late twenties

The performers double up as storytellers: B, S, P and N.

Setting:
A high school in a small town on the West Coast of Scotland.

Scene One

Inside Sparky’s head:

B I’m standing here. I’m looking at you. You want to know what I see? I see a room full of corpses. Every single wan ae you lying there in a big pool of blood. Sick, in’t it? We all have sick thoughts. It doesnae matter what you think, it’s what you do that counts. Trouble is, my thoughts do things. Don’t believe me? Just watch.

Scene Two

Guidance room.

Sparky is wearing a giant pair of headphones.

Mrs Kelly Stephen?

No response.

Stephen?

No response.

Stephen!

He looks up.

Can you take those off, please?

Sparky What?

Mrs Kelly Can you take those off?

He peels the headphones from his ears.

Sparky Did you say something?

Mrs Kelly Can you take those off, please, I’d like to speak to you.

He drops the headphones back into place.

Sparky I’m listening.

Mrs Kelly I can’t talk to you when you’ve got those on.

Sparky I can hear you fine.

Mrs Kelly Stephen, please.

Sparky My name’s Sparky.

Mrs Kelly Stephen …

Sparky It isnae ‘Stephen’, it’s Sparky.

A beat.

Mr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• The Static
• Blackout
• About the Author
• eCopyright