Jez Butterworth Plays
Page 25
Lights up on NED, looking at him.
DALE. Ned?
NED smiles.
Ned, mate. Are you okay?
NED just stares at him.
Look, Ned... It was... Ned. Please.
NED. Help me, Dale. Help me. Please. You have to. Please help me.
DALE. What?
NED. Please. Please don’t let me fall asleep. Don’t let me fall asleep.
DALE. Ned –
NED. I don’t know what I’ll do. I... I... Please. I... I’m falling... I’m... Help me.
DALE. Ned –
NED. It’s coming. It’s coming for me. For me.
DALE. Oh my God.
NED. No. No. No. Please. Help me.
DALE. And then he told me. He told me his dream.
Blackout. Pause.
Spotlight on:
NED. I’m alone. In the middle of a forest. I’m surrounded by tall pines. It’s freezing cold. I feel the wind. The dry, dry wind. On my face. The awful dry chill. Suddenly I see walls growing up around me. Brick by brick. Bricks growing all around. One on the other. Faster and faster. Four walls rising up. Wallpaper growing. Light switches. Fittings. Carpet growing beneath my feet.
A ceiling, closing overhead, closing out the light. I’m closed into a room. I’m in the middle of a room. I know the room. It’s a bedroom. My bedroom. (Beat.) I’m home. I turn around. And I see it. I see it all. Everything. Everything I’d lost. Everything. It was all there.
Music. Lights up slowly as NED turns around. The lights come up on all of the things he has lost. The room is full of clocks. Golf clubs. Stuffed badgers. Busts. Books. Lawnmowers. The tandem. The beekeeping kit. The birdbath. Everything. From out of the birdbath, he picks up the gold cufflinks. Holds them up to the light. Reads the inscription. He puts them back.
The light catches the bed. A figure lies covered there, sleeping.
He walks over. And stands watching her sleep. Slowly he picks up the cricket bat. He holds it in his hands. He slowly raises it and brings it crashing down on the sleeper. Over and over.
Blackout.
Instant spotlight on:
JOY. I stand at the end of the street. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the rain and the cars whizzing by. Soon the sounds fade. There’s nothing but darkness. And when I open my eyes, the cars have gone. The road has gone. The houses have gone. I’m standing in a forest. After rain. I take a step forward. Another. I don’t turn round. I just walk. Away. I don’t look back. The wind whips up. I’m running against the wind and it’s pushing me back. And suddenly the wind changes and it’s behind me, pushing me along, carrying me further and further away. And I close my eyes. And I run.
Lights fade to black.
Spotlight on:
DALE. It’s funny. You live six feet apart and your paths never seem to cross. Take the couple on the other side. The Harrisons. Pam and Phil. Pam and Pete. Paul. Honestly, they’ve lived there five years I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Not like the other side. You’ll not be surprised to hear we’re still thick as thieves. Still in each other’s pockets. The ladies went for a pint only last week. And I bumped into Ned on his way to work this morning. Chatted about this and that. Pencilled in a barbecue. But we never talked about that night. The night he told me his dream. (Beat.) Before he rushed off, I asked him if it was still happening. If his stuff was still going missing. ‘You know me, Dale. I’ve got that much junk. That much rubbish I can’t keep track of it. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on. What it needs is a good spring clean.’ (Pause.) They blew up the Arndale Centre Tuesday. Drew a crowd of over a thousand. There was hot dogs, a brass band, kids dancing with their dads and everything. The press was there. The local TV news. I bumped into Ned, but he was too busy to talk. Had this hard hat on. And a walkie-talkie. And now I think of it, yes, unless I’m mistaken, he did look better. Thinner. Less tired. Mind you, it was dark. (Pause.) She was there too. Joy. Standing a few rows behind us, among the crowd, in her black mac, shivering, looking up into the dark. (Beat.) Then suddenly, a hush fell over the crowd, there was a drum roll, and everyone joined in together, all the mums and dads, all the families what had shopped there for years, all chanting together ten, nine, eight, seven... SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE – and there was this rumble and the whole thing came crashing down, and when the smoke cleared there was just dust and rubble for ever. Then suddenly, the skies opened and it started to rain.
DALE looks up. NED and JOY appear in the half-light, standing apart, still, gazing up at the dark sky.
The End.
THE NAKED EYE
The Naked Eye was first performed as part of the 10 x 25 season at Atlantic Stage 2, the Atlantic Theater, New York, on 1 June 2011. It was performed by Zosia Mamet and directed by Neil Pepe.
The naked eye.
I was eight years old when Dad lined us up in the kitchen said he had
something important to say.
He said tonight a comet was going to pass Planet Earth. For the first
time in a hundred years, Halley’s Comet was going to pass by and be
visible to the naked eye.
It was once in a lifetime, and so he and Mum had decided we were
to be allowed to stay up especially to watch it.
So we all had baths, got in our pyjamas and coats and scarves on and
sat down in the garden on deckchairs, under the stars.
Dad said we would remember this night for ever, and tell our
children about it. We had cocoa and biscuits and the radio was on
talking about the comet. It said the comet had first been spotted in
240 BC by Babylonian astronomers, how it was made of volatile
compounds, and had a tail which extended a hundred million
kilometers into space.
All day long Dad had been really excited. He kept checking the sky, changed the batteries in the
radio twice, mowed the lawn, washed the mildew off the deckchairs, put them in the sun to dry.
Then he got in the car and disappeared for two hours, and when he came back he put a box on
the table and unpacked a small telescope. It was black, about two feet tall. He said he’d bought it
for the family, and it belonged to all of us. He sat at the table reading the assembly instructions,
and carefully put the thing together. He shaved, even though it was the weekend, and around
sundown I saw him ironing his pyjamas in the kitchen. I’d never seen him use an iron before. He
did it very carefully, so as not to put any creases in them, to make them perfect.
So there we were, in the dark, in pyjamas, in deckchairs, in a line, gazing up at the sky. After a
couple of hours Mum said she was tired and went inside to
bed, but the rest of us sat up waiting. My brother started dropping off and Dad suddenly stood up
out of his deckchair, picked him up and shook him. ‘Wake up,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t miss this.
It’s important.’ My brother looked really scared.
It got colder. I did everything I could to stay awake. I pinched
myself. Took deep breaths.
At midnight, the sky clouded over. The stars disappeared. There was
nothing we could do. The comet was up there, soaring past and we
were going to miss it. It would not be back for a hundred years. By
then, everyone, Mum, Dad, my sister, my brother, the neighbours,
everyone in our town, the whole world. Everyone would be dead.
Me and my brother and sister, we turned to Dad. And there he was,
fast asleep in his deckchair. With his hands behind his head, and sticking out of his pyjama flies,
was this great big boner. Standing
up straight. Big as a milk bottle. Hard as iron.
My little sister said, ‘What’s that?’
And my big brother said, ‘It’s bedtime.’
I picked up the telescope and carefully carried it indoors. Though it was only small it was heavy,
cold, and slippery with dew. I put it on the table in the corner of the lounge, turned off the light,
and went to bed.
The radio said in olden days people thought the comet was a sign.
That it meant something wonderful or terrible was about to happen
JEZ BUTTERWORTH
Mojo (1995), The Night Heron (2002), The Winterling (2006), Jerusalem (2009) and The River (2012) were all premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Jerusalem transferred to the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End in 2010, the Music Box Theatre, New York, in 2011, and back to the Apollo later in 2011. Parlour Song was premiered at the Atlantic Theater, New York, in 2008, and at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2009. Mojo won the George Devine Award, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Writers’ Guild, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright. Jerusalem won the Best Play Award at the Critics’ Circle, Evening Standard and WhatsOnStage.com Awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Jez wrote and directed the film adaptation of Mojo (1998) starring Ian Hart and Harold Pinter, and Birthday Girl (2002) starring Nicole Kidman and Ben Chaplin, and co-wrote and produced Fair Game (2010) starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. In 2007 he was awarded the E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A Nick Hern Book
Jez Butterworth Plays: One first published in Great Britain as a paperback original in 2011 by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP
This ebook edition first published in 2013
This collection copyright © 2011 Jez Butterworth
Interview copyright © 2011 Nick Hern Books Ltd
Mojo copyright © 1995, 1996, 2011 Jez Butterworth
The Night Heron copyright © 2002, 2011 Jez Butterworth
The Winterling copyright © 2006, 2008, 2011 Jez Butterworth
Leavings copyright © 2006, 2011 Jez Butterworth
Parlour Song copyright © 2009, 2011 Jez Butterworth
The Naked Eye copyright © 2011 Jez Butterworth
Jez Butterworth has asserted his right to be identified as the author of these works
Cover image: Jez Butterworth outside the Royal Court Theatre, London, before the opening of Mojo, July 1995 (Henrietta Butler/ArenaPAL)
Cover design: Ned Hoste, 2H
Typeset by Nick Hern Books, London
ISBN 978 1 78001 222 3 (ebook edition)
ISBN 978 1 84842 226 1 (print edition)
CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Amateur Performing Rights Applications for performance of all the plays in this volume, in excerpt or in full by amateurs, including readings and excerpts, should be addressed to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, except as follows:
Australia: Dominie Drama, 8 Cross Street, Brookvale 2100, tel (2) 9938 8686 fax (2) 9938 8695, e-mail drama@dominie.com.au
New Zealand: Play Bureau, PO Box 420, New Plymouth, tel (6) 757 3103, e-mail play.bureau.nz@xtra.co.nz
South Africa: DALRO (pty) Ltd, PO Box 31627, 2017 Braamfontein, tel (11) 712 2008, fax (11) 403 9094, e-mail theatricals@dalro.co.za
United States of America and Canada: Fred Spektor, CAA, see details below.
Professional Performing Rights Application for performance by professionals of all the plays in this volume in any medium and in any language throughout the world should be addressed to Fred Specktor, CAA, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067, USA, fax +1 (424) 288 2900, e-mail FSpecktor@caa.com.
No performance of any kind may be given unless a licence has been obtained. Applications should be made before rehearsals begin. Publication of these plays does not necessarily indicate their availability for performance.