Somalia Seaton
RED
NICK HERN BOOKS
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk
TONIC THEATRE
www.tonictheatre.co.uk
Contents
Platform
Introduction
Acknowedgements
Production Note
Red
About the Author
Copyright and performing Righrs Information
Commissioning and publishing a range of new plays which give girls a greater share of the action was always on my to-do list when I founded Tonic in 2011. While Tonic has very big aspirations – to support theatre in the UK to achieve greater gender equality – it is a small company and so we have to make careful choices about where we target our efforts. I spend lots of time looking to identify ‘pressure points’ – places where, with a bit of work, a great effect can be achieved. For this reason, much of Tonic’s work focuses on partnerships with some of the largest theatres in the country, because if they change, others will follow. But it has always been clear to me that youth drama is one of the greatest pressure points of all. It is the engine room of the theatre industry; tomorrow’s theatre-makers (not to mention audience members) are to be found today in youth-theatre groups, university drama societies and school drama clubs all over the country. If we can challenge their assumptions about the role of women’s stories, voices, and ideas in drama, then change in the profession – in time – will be immeasurably easier to achieve.
Beyond this strategic interest in youth drama, I was convinced that girls were getting a raw deal, and I found that troubling. Having worked previously as a youth-theatre director, I was familiar with the regular challenge of trying to find scripts that had adequate numbers of female roles for all the committed and talented girls that wanted to take part. In nearly all the various youth-drama groups I worked in across a five-year period, there were significantly more girls than boys. However, when it came to finding big-cast, age-appropriate plays for them to work on, I was constantly frustrated by how few there seemed to be that provided enough opportunity for the girls. When looking at contemporary new writing for young actors to perform, one could be mistaken for thinking that youth drama was a predominantly male pursuit, rather than the other way round.
Aside from the practicalities of matching the number of roles to the number of girls in any one drama group, the nature of writing for female characters was something I struggled to get excited about. While there were some notable examples, often the writing for female characters seemed somewhat lacklustre. They tended to be characters at the periphery of the action rather than its heart, with far less to say and do than their male counterparts, and with a tendency towards being one-dimensional, rather than complex or vibrant, funny or surprising. Why was it that in the twenty-first century, the quality as well as the quantity of roles being written for girls still seemed to lag behind those for boys?
Keen to check I wasn’t just imagining this imbalance, Tonic conducted a nationwide research study looking into opportunities for girls in youth drama, focusing on the quantity and quality of roles available to them. The research was written up into a report, Swimming in the shallow end, and is published on the Tonic website. Not only did the research confirm my worst fears, more depressingly, it exceeded them. Many of the research participants were vocal about the social, artistic and emotional benefits that participation in youth-drama productions can have on a young person’s life. But so too were they – to quote the report – on ‘the erosion to self-esteem, confidence and aspiration when these opportunities are repeatedly held out of reach… [and] for too many girls, this is the case’.
But despite the doom and gloom of the research findings, there remained an exciting proposition; to write stories that weren’t currently being put on stage, and to foreground – rather than ignore – the experiences, achievements and world-view of young women, perhaps the group above all others in our society whose situation has altered so dramatically over the past hundred or so years. The brief Tonic sets Platform writers is: write a large-cast play specifically for performance by young actors, with mainly or entirely female casts and in which the female characters are no less complex or challenging than the male characters. We ask them to write in such a way that these plays can be performed by young people anywhere in the country, and that there should be scope for every school, college and youth-theatre group performing the play to make a production their own.
There are now five Platform plays published, of which this is one, and our hope is that there will be many more. Our aspiration – fundraising permitting – is to keep commissioning titles in the series so that over time, Platform will become a new canon of writing for young actors, and one that puts girls and their lives centre stage. The first three plays in the series were published two years ago and already in that time have been performed across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, as well as in Ireland, Australia and the USA. I look forward to hearing about productions of this play, and a future where great stories about girls and their lives are being staged in theatres, halls, drama studios and classrooms as the rule rather than the exception.
Lucy Kerbel
Director, Tonic
www.tonictheatre-platform.co.uk
Acknowledgements
Tonic would like to thank:
Matt Applewhite, Tamara von Werthern, Jon Barton, Marcelo Dos Santos and all at Nick Hern Books, Moira Buffini, Company Three, Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance, the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and the National Theatre Studio.
We are grateful to the following for their support of Platform:
The Chapman Charitable Trust, Didymus, Garrick Charitable Trust, Golsoncott Foundation, John Thaw Foundation, and Unity Theatre Trust.
Tonic was created in 2011 to support the theatre industry to achieve greater gender equality in its workforces and repertoires. Today, Tonic partners with leading theatres and performing-arts organisations around the UK on a range of projects, schemes and creative works. Current and recent partners include Chichester Festival Theatre, English Touring Theatre, National Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre, Northern Ballet, Royal Opera House, Royal Shakespeare Company, Sadler’s Wells, West Yorkshire Playhouse, and the Young Vic.
Tonic’s approach involves getting to grips with the principles that lie beneath how our industry functions – our working methods, decision-making processes, and organisational structures – and identifying how, in their current form, these can create barriers. Once we have done that, we devise practical yet imaginative alternative approaches and work with our partners to trial and deliver them. Essentially, our goal is to equip our colleagues in UK theatre with the tools they need to ensure more talented women are given the opportunity to rise to the top.
Platform is a collaboration between Tonic and Nick Hern Books. Nick Hern Books also publishes Tonic’s books: 100 Great Plays for Women and All Change Please: A Practical Guide to Achieving Gender Equality in Theatre.
www.tonictheatre.co.uk
We leapt at the chance to publish and license the Platform plays in collaboration with Tonic, and always had high hopes that by making plays available which gave young women the opportunity to take centre stage, we would improve not only their confidence levels, but also start to have a positive effect on the theatrical landscape as a whole.
After all, here at the Performing Rights Department at Nick Hern Books, we’re often asked, ‘Are there any plays for young people?’… ‘Have you got anything for a large cast?’… and ‘Is there anything with strong female roles?’
Whilst the answer to these questions is, in each case, a resounding ‘Yes!’ (and in fact the majority of plays we’ve published in recent years have been by women), the number of plays that fulfil
all three of these criteria – strong roles for a large, predominantly or all-female cast of young actors – has historically been less plentiful. Yet that’s where there’s so much demand! Nearly every teacher and youth-theatre director in the country knows that it’s girls who make up the majority of their casts, and yet the plays available are often dominated by men. Because we can generally only publish what is being produced on the professional stages of the UK, until the theatre industry starts staging more plays with these qualities, the numbers will remain low. It’s a vicious circle.
Two years after the publication of the first three Platform plays in 2015, I am delighted to report that this circle has somewhat started to disintegrate. It’s a source of great pleasure that, aside from their social and political purpose, they’re all excellent plays in their own right. As such, we have licensed dozens of productions of the Platform plays to date, providing opportunities and great roles to hundreds of young women (and young men, for that matter) around the world. While this is cause for celebration, it is no reason for complacency – the journey continues – and we are delighted to publish two great new Platform plays, which will hopefully be received as enthusiastically by schools and youth-theatre groups as the first three in the series.
Nick Hern Books looks after the amateur performing rights to over a thousand plays, and we know from experience that when it comes to choosing the right play it can be confusing (and pricey) to read enough of what’s out there until you know which play is right for you. This is why we send out approval copies: up to three plays at a time, for thirty days, after which they have to be paid for, or returned to us in mint condition, and you just need to pay the postage. So there is no reason not to read all of the available Platform plays to see if they will suit your school, college or youth-theatre group. We’re very hopeful that one of them will.
Performing rights to all five Platform plays are available at a specially reduced rate to enable even those on a very tight budget to perform them. Discounts are also available on cast sets of scripts; and the cover images on these books can be supplied, free of charge, for you to use on your poster.
If you have any questions about Platform, or any of the plays on our list, or want to talk about what you’re looking for, we are always happy to speak with you. Call us on +44 (0)20 8749 4953, or email us at [email protected].
And here’s to many more Platform plays in the future!
Tamara von Werthern
Performing Rights Manager
Nick Hern Books
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform
Introduction
Somalia Seaton
With Red, I wanted to interrogate the reasons behind the catastrophic number of young people that are reported missing in the UK. Seventy young people are reported missing in London alone, every single day. I had thought that I would write a play about this, then I thought I was writing a play about how young people empower themselves by metaphorically disappearing themselves in spaces not right for them…
But what I was really writing was a play about grief. A play that looks at the debris left behind when someone leaves. A play that looks at how a young girl learns to cope with no longer having her closest friend by her side. I wanted to look at the power of our minds and how we create mini-worlds in there, that wrap their arms around us and keep us comforted from the harsh realities of the outside. Red is about friendship, loss, girlhood and grief.
Acknowledgements
There have been many practitioners involved in the development of Red, notably Jane Fallowfield and the following theatre-makers from Company Three: Aaliyah Murrian, Abigail Phillips-Douglas, Alannah Makoni, Anisha Ngagba, Arianna King, Bailey Smith, Cherie Duah, Cynthia Mumbaya, Danielle Maragh, Dylan Lubo, Fransisco Rodrigues, Inaayat Chowdhury, Isobel Burrows, Jack Hughes, Jaekwan Hunte-Jarrett, Jake Monib, James-Leon Gallacher, Jonathan Gini Rodrigues, Kadiesat Turay, Kayne Parara, Nusayba Abaas, Olga Popiolek-Szulczewska, Selin Goksungar, Sonya Miah and Vini Padoan. With further contributions from the following: Allyson Brown, Rebecca Omogbehin, Sophia Jackson, Sheri-An Davis, Sasha Frost, Urielle Klein-Mekongo, Rosie Wyatt, Jacoba Williams, Camilla Stanger, Suzie Kirk Dumitru, Jen Thomas, Anna Niland and the National Youth Theatre.
Many thanks to Lucy Kerbel, Ned Glasier, Adam Coleman, Maa-Yarkor Addo and Segen Yosef.
S.S.
Production Note
The Text
Where / appears there is an overlap in speech.
Where lines and words appear within [ ] they are not to be spoken.
Set
The set should feel sparse and mystical.
Familiar objects may appear on stage, but in some obscure way. It is very possible to disregard the use of noted props.
The World
Dusk: The moment between Day and Night, when the sky looks various shades of reds. These scenes are Dee’s version of events, but her recalling of memories may not always be factually accurate.
Day/Night: It is suggested that these are two alternative states to Dusk. Scenes that take place during Day are in real time.
The Chorus
The Chorus are everywhere at all times, and should feel present throughout the play.
Sometimes, and more often than not, they are our gateway into Dee’s grief. They know more than us and more than the other characters in the play. Sometimes they embody those other characters, i.e. Jay and Mother.
The Chorus can speak in unison, or individually. It is important for each company to develop a personality or several for the Chorus.
Adults are felt but never seen, especially during Dusk scenes.
Characters
DEE
JAY
BEE
TEE
GEE
CHORUS
MOTHER, voice-over
One
Dusk.
The Tent.
DEE is visibly anxious. She checks her phone and keeps an eye out. A sack appears out of nowhere. She opens up the sack to reveal a tent. She begins setting it up. It does not need to be big, it could be symbolic, it could be miniature. It needs to be practical and easy to assemble. Once it’s assembled, she takes off her trainers, and undoes her school tie. She lays down on the grass and runs her hands and feet through it and looks up at the sky.
DEE flashes her torch inside her tent, making shapes and keeping a lookout. Outside we hear MOTHER, though we never see her.
MOTHER. She won’t come out.
Doesn’t matter how hard you try, she won’t come out.
I’ve asked her friends, I’ve spoken to the school, they all say the same thing.
She’s in shock.
Give her time.
Let her be.
But, I’m worried, I’m worried I’m gonna lose my little girl, I’m worried she’ll never speak again, like I’ve lost my grip, like she’s…
We become aware of the CHORUS darting throughout the space.
…floating far far away from me, and I’ll never hold her again, or be able to tell her it’s okay, I’m here.
CHORUS. Like she’ll never trust that I can protect her from the pain she’s feeling now. I just wanna wrap her in my arms and take it all away. But they say –
She’s in shock.
Give her time.
Let her be.
Will you… will you just go and speak to her…
Please?
Could you just try and get her to say something?
Please?
I need her to come out from there, just for a little while.
Just so I know she’s with us, ya know?
Here with us.
You understand?
Right?
Two
Dusk.
We are inside DEE’s mind. It is always Dusk in her mind and the sky is always red. (It might be that you represent this with light or it might be that you represent this with cloth. It might be that you choose not to represent this at all. Any of these choices are fine.
)
JAY appears.
JAY (whispers). Psst! Psst!
Come on!
DEE. Jay?
JAY. Yes! Hurry up!
DEE. What are you doing?
JAY. Breaking you out! You’ve turned into a right bore!
DEE. I don’t understand where you’ve been.
JAY. I can’t tell you.
DEE. Why?
JAY. Because ‘Y’ has two arms and a leg!
DEE. What?!
JAY. You look like crap!
DEE. I don’t!
JAY. There’s no life behind your eyes.
DEE. It’s been difficult.
JAY. Get over yourself!
DEE. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.
JAY. Fine! Bye!
DEE. Where are you going?
JAY. I’ve got a race in like thirty seconds.
DEE. What?
JAY. Hurry up!
JAY bolts outside and takes her position at the starting line.
DEE. Wait!
DEE reluctantly peeps out of the tent and notices the CROWD.
In this scene we watch JAY racing. The CHORUS become the CROWD. Some cheer her on, some don’t. The CHORUS find individual characters in how they stand, how they cheer.
CHORUS. On your mark.
JAY takes her position.
Get set!
GO!!
The CROWD cheers.
JAY races back and forth, she is winning the race and she knows it.
The CROWD love her.
And she loves the CROWD.
Did you know there are like seven billion people on Earth?
Well, seven-point-five.
There are seven-point-five billion people on planet Earth.
As far as we know.
JAY starts to run out of breath.
That’s… nuts!
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