by David Hare
Laughter.
Voice 1 Can we ask one question first? Is this about the leadership of the Labour Party?
Sandy Well, if you just let me speak –
Voice 2 There’s a suggestion that Ms Gibson joined the Labour Party illicitly and that the National Executive will hold an emergency meeting to debate a motion throwing her out of the Party.
Sandy I hadn’t heard that.
Voice 2 Do you have a comment?
Sandy No, because I haven’t heard it.
Voice 4 In the forthcoming leadership election are you expecting Jack Gould to be a candidate?
Sandy Does the Pope have a balcony?
Voice 4 Is that on the record or off?
Voice 3 Is Ms Gibson a candidate?
Voice 1 In spite of repeatedly saying she isn’t a candidate?
More laughter.
Voice 2 Is it true she and Jack Gould were recently seen together having a blazing row?
Sandy Ladies and gentlemen, these are all good questions and they will be answered in time. First though I have to explain. Ms Gibson feels that my efforts to clarify her position have not always met with success, and she prefers on this occasion to talk to you in person. She’s here.
Pauline comes out. She’s dressed up. She’s the same person but prepared for public show. Cameras flash repeatedly, and countless questions are yelled out inaudibly all at once. She holds up her hands to still the unseen crowd.
Pauline Thank you, Sandy. Thank you. Everyone –
She stops a moment.
I’m aware that there has been some speculation about my intentions in relation to the forthcoming race to lead the Labour Party –
Another massive barrage of reaction starts, a lot of it responding to her understatement. Flash cameras. She waits.
I continue to receive messages from all over the country, a lot of them from women who feel that women’s voices, and especially progressive women’s voices, are absent from national debate. I’m deeply moved by the trust they show me.
Voice 1 Does that mean you’re running?
Pauline This has been a very difficult period, in which I’ve tried to balance out what people expect of me, and what I might, in reality, be able to achieve. I’m comparatively young, by the standards of these things. I’m healthy, thank goodness. I’ve built up a strong network of support –
Voice 2 Sounds to me like you’re going to do it.
Pauline I’m not going to lie to you: the decision has been in the balance. But at the end of it all, I’ve made up my mind.
There is a silence.
I’m running.
The silence is total. Pauline is alone, just a woman in an empty space. Time slows down, as if the universe were still.
I’m running.
End of Act Two.
About the Author
David Hare’s first full-length play was produced in 1970. Since then he has written over thirty stage plays and twenty-five screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy’s View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn and The Moderate Soprano. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, the Worricker Trilogy (Page Eight, Turks & Caicos, and Salting the Battlefield) and Collateral. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.
Also by the Author
PLAYS ONE
(Slag, Teeth ’n’ Smiles, Knuckle, Licking Hitler, Plenty)
PLAYS TWO
(Fanshen, A Map of the World, Saigon, The Bay at Nice, The Secret Rapture)
PLAYS THREE
(Skylight, Amy’s View, The Judas Kiss, My Zinc Bed)
RACING DEMON
MURMURING JUDGES
THE ABSENCE OF WAR
VIA DOLOROSA
THE BLUE ROOM
(from La Ronde by Schnitzler)
THE BREATH OF LIFE
THE PERMANENT WAY
STUFF HAPPENS
THE VERTICAL HOUR
GETHSEMANE
BERLIN/WALL
THE POWER OF YES
SOUTH DOWNS
BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS
THE RED BARN
THE MODERATE SOPRANO
adaptations
PLATONOV BY CHEKHOV
THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA BY LORCA
ENEMIES BY GORKY
YOUNG CHEKHOV
THE MASTER BUILDER BY IBSEN
screenplays
COLLECTED SCREENPLAYS
(Wetherby, Paris by Night, Strapless, Heading Home, Dreams of Leaving)
THE HOURS
prose
ACTING UP
ASKING AROUND: BACKGROUND TO THE DAVID HARE TRILOGY
WRITING LEFT-HANDED
OBEDIENCE, STRUGGLE AND REVOLT
THE BLUE TOUCH PAPER
Copyright
First published in 2018
by Faber and Faber Limited
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London WC1B 3DA
First published in the USA in 2018
This ebook edition first published in 2018
All rights reserved
© David Hare, 2018
The right of David Hare to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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ISBN 978–0–571–34581–6