Plays from Vault Read online

  PLAYS FROM VAULT

  EGGS

  Florence Keith-Roach

  MR INCREDIBLE

  Camilla Whitehill

  PRIMADONNA

  Rosie Kellett

  CORNERMEN

  Oli Forsyth

  RUN

  Stephen Laughton

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Welcome to VAULT

  Eggs by Florence Keith-Roach

  Mr Incredible by Camilla Whitehill

  Primadonna by Rosie Kellett

  Cornermen by Oli Forsyth

  Run by Stephen Laughton

  About the Authors

  Copyright and Perfoming Rights Information

  Welcome to VAULT

  For six weeks in bleakest winter, VAULT Festival transforms the dark tunnels underneath Waterloo Station into a carnival of experiences, every nook and cranny filled with entertainment and around every corner an unexpected adventure.

  VAULT is a place to discuss, and a place to party: every night you can join hundreds of artists and explorers for gigs, parties and performances. Since 2012, we have hosted over 250 productions from Britain’s most exciting emerging artists.

  We’re trying to reinvent the business model of the non-funded creative sector and make it sustainable for both the artist and the festival. We can’t offer luxury, but what we can give is space: to innovate, take risks and collaborate with each other without the huge financial burdens you’ll find across the Thames, and in big institutions.

  We’re delighted to present this collection of new writing. Though not everything at VAULT starts (or even ends) with a script, we hope you’ll find these five plays to be a cross-section of the exciting new talent which courses through the Festival’s veins.

  Andy George, Mat Burt, and Tim Wilson

  VAULT Festival Directors

  This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so the texts may differ slightly from the plays as performed.

  EGGS

  Florence Keith-Roach

  For Lily

  Acknowledgements

  With very special thanks to Maud Dromgoole; dramaturg and director of Eggs in Edinburgh.

  Eternal gratitude to Michal Murawski, the ultimate polo-necked pundit, Wendy and Stephen Keith-Roach, Christine Bramwell, Imy Wyatt-Corner, Stuart Snaith, Charlie Hanson, Eloise Lawson, Imogen Lloyd, Zander Levy, Emily Bartelott, Coral Amiga, Tor Lupton, Harriet Green, Lauren Cooney, James Lambert, the Cheetham family, Chiara Goldsmith, George Belfield & Sex Club (may this stand as an homage to our symposia!).

  F. K-R.

  Eggs was first performed at VAULT Festival, London, on 24 February 2016, with the following cast:

  GIRL ONE

  Florence Keith-Roach

  GIRL TWO

  Amani Zardoe

  Producer

  Lucie Massey

  Set Designer

  Clementine Keith-Roach

  Costume Designer

  Lily Ashley

  Associate Producer

  Hannah Tookey

  Executive Producer

  Alex Timken

  Lighting Designer

  Lucy Hansom

  Sound Designer

  Jon McLeod

  Poster Designer

  Clementine Keith-Roach

  Photography

  Lily Ashley

  Eggs is brought to you by Orphee Productions, a female-led collective dedicated to telling stories which challenge gender disparity.

  A work-in-progress version of Eggs premiered at the Edinburgh Free Fringe 2015.

  Characters

  GIRL ONE

  GIRL TWO

  A dash (–) indicates the next line interrupts.

  A forward slash (/) indicates an overlap.

  Scene One

  A hospital. March. 2016. The end.

  GIRL ONE. It’s not just the eggs themselves, it’s the hypocrisy of the vegetarians who eat them.

  GIRL TWO. What else have they got to eat?

  GIRL ONE. It’s really weird, think about it?

  GIRL TWO. No actually, can you stop. I don’t want to think about eggs any more, thank you.

  GIRL ONE. Okay, okay, so I was at a café the other day with Save-the-world Suki and she spent, ah so long, tut, tut, tutting up and down the menu, whinging that it wasn’t ‘veggie friendly’, whatever that means? Only to shut up, finally, and agree to have a Spanish omelette. Now, I didn’t think anything of it either, at first, I was just thinking how absurd Suki has gotten –

  GIRL TWO. Yeah, she really has, why did you –

  GIRL ONE. But the next morning, I found myself cracking an egg for my dad, like the 1950s house-slave that I am –

  GIRL TWO. Ha, that’s what you get for still living at home –

  GIRL ONE. And I looked into this orange orb floating in a glistening, gooey, well, placenta –

  GIRL TWO. Ahhhhhhh –

  GIRL ONE. And it hit me. WOW. This is an unborn chicken. This is so much an unborn chicken that it is almost grossing ME out and I am a proper carnivore. I’m, like, the first to be mouth-deep in some still-beating blood and muscle. But even I can see that there is something really dark about eating an unborn child.

  GIRL TWO. You’re chatting shit, complete unscientific shit. An egg is not an embryo, it’s not yet fertilised.

  GIRL ONE. Oh, come on? I am not talking scientifically, I am talking emotionally! Like, it’s just as bad as eating a normal adult animal. Way worse even. Cos your average mature pig has probably led, in animal years and as long as you don’t get any of that factory-farmed stuff, a pretty long and happy life. You know, in the bosom of her loving, surprisingly hygienic family, a little hut to rest her snout in, the gentle hum of the A303 rolling by. Charming. Whereas, here, here is this aborted thing, this thing with the promise of a life filled with fields and feed, ripped from its mother’s downy breast and shoved into a cardboard box to be devoured by the pointed incisors of holier-than-thou hypocrites!

  Pause.

  Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on about its unfulfilled life or anything. That wasn’t very… Considering you just… I’m not against abortions at all. Just vegetarians eating eggs.

  Pause.

  Sound and light fill the stage.

  Scene Two

  A landing. January. 2015. The beginning.

  A doorbell rings.

  GIRL ONE rushes to the door, she doesn’t open it but talks from behind it, clearly disturbed.

  GIRL ONE. What took you so long?

  GIRL TWO. What do you mean? I ran all the way.

  GIRL ONE. Did you bring the razor?

  GIRL TWO. Yes, but… What is going on?

  GIRL ONE. Okay, so if you could just slide it through the letter box and leave, that would be great.

  GIRL TWO. What? No, not if you are going to cut your wrists with it.

  GIRL ONE. Just slide it and leave. Thank you.

  GIRL TWO. I am not a delivery service.

  GIRL ONE. You only live two streets away.

  GIRL TWO. That’s not the point. Come on, let me in.

  GIRL ONE. That’s not a good idea.

  GIRL TWO. Why not? What is going on? This is fucking out of order.

  She bangs on the door.

  GIRL ONE. No, shhh. You’ll wake the neighbours.

  GIRL TWO. They’re all still out partying.

  GIRL ONE. It’s for your own good.

  GIRL TWO. Listen to me. It is okay. It is all going to be okay.

  GIRL ONE. Go home and do some work. You know you want to.

  GIRL TWO. Open the door. Open the DOOOORRRRRRRRR!

  She starts banging on the door, screaming.
/>
  Eventually, GIRL ONE opens the door, she has wet hair and red eyes.

  Oh my god, you’ve gelled your hair!

  GIRL ONE. What? No. I’ve got nits!

  GIRL TWO (jumping back). Err. Really? Rank.

  GIRL ONE. I know. So just give me the razor and go away, before it’s too late.

  GIRL TWO. It is 7 a.m. on New Year’s Day. I thought you were going to kill yourself!

  GIRL ONE. Oh chill out. It’s not like you weren’t tucked up in bed with Miss Marple by 10 p.m.?

  GIRL TWO. That’s not the point. And I wasn’t.

  This is so fucking typical of you! You selfish. You selfish… dunt!

  GIRL ONE. Dunt?

  GIRL TWO. Who do you think you are?

  GIRL ONE. Please. Just give me the razor.

  GIRL TWO. You don’t need a razor, you need a nit comb.

  GIRL ONE. I’ve got a nit comb. A fucking expensive nit comb. The woman in the chemist royally ripped me off. She kept asking how old my infected child was. The bitch.

  GIRL TWO. I mean it’s a fairly logical question, it is pretty rare for anyone over twelve to have nits.

  GIRL ONE. No, she knows I don’t have a child. I mean, I was in there, like, every weekend last year to get the free morning-after pill. We’ve discussed, at length, how irresponsible and un-maternal I am. Not to mention how barren I probably am, which admittedly made the whole pill thing a bit of a charade, but it’s free, so… No, she was just trying to fluster me so that I’d go for the TURBO comb. Twice as expensive.

  GIRL TWO. Well maybe TURBO is a good thing?

  GIRL ONE. It hasn’t worked. I have been up all night scraping my scalp raw and the population is not dwindling. I even tried to nuke the fuckers, I submerged my head in a bath of vodka, you know, to make them drunk and defenceless? I mean if it worked with the Native Americans? But no joy.

  GIRL TWO. How do you always manage to make a reference to your colonialism essay?

  GIRL ONE. It was a great essay, only three per cent of our year got a first, and you weren’t one of them –

  GIRL TWO. That was five years ago. Get over it. You are so deranged.

  GIRL ONE. Well you’d feel deranged too if your boyfriend had squealed in disgust when he saw a nit jump from your head. As you were giving him head.

  GIRL TWO. What? There is no way he could have seen that. Anyway, he is not your boyfriend.

  GIRL ONE. We’ve been together for four months.

  GIRL TWO. But you’ve only seen each other, like, four times.

  GIRL ONE. It’s the quality not the quantity. God you always demean my relationships.

  GIRL TWO. No, I am just protective. He ditches you after sex every time.

  GIRL ONE. He’s Swiss, he can’t handle fraught emotions.

  GIRL TWO. So, he’s pathetic as well as a dick?

  GIRL ONE. He saw a nit jump from my head to his pubic hair. How was he supposed to react?

  GIRL TWO. How did he even see it?

  GIRL ONE. He wears very thick glasses and it was a big one. Like a prawn. He said I was a rancid nest of bad hygiene and then he left.

  GIRL TWO. I mean?

  GIRL ONE (hiccuping). It was so sad cos it was the first time I have ever spent New Year’s Eve with a boyfriend, it was going to be a really great date –

  GIRL TWO. What? Where he’d come round, get head and leave? –

  GIRL ONE. And instead I was left downing two bottles of prosecco with a bleeding scalp.

  GIRL TWO (suppressing laughter). But where on earth did you get nits from?

  GIRL ONE. He said I got them from the dogs.

  GIRL TWO. Dogs have fleas not nits.

  GIRL ONE. Yeah, but he said they can, like, transmute on human blood.

  GIRL TWO. Ah, so he’s an idiot as well as a dick.

  GIRL ONE. Well it does make sense. I am walking them day in day out.

  GIRL TWO. But –

  GIRL ONE. Ah, it’s so rank when you get, like, a row of eggs on the comb. Like, fish-egg roe. Growing on my scalp.

  GIRL TWO. Stop it.

  GIRL ONE. I think, like, the plethora of fertile eggs breeding on my head, is particularly abrasive to my sensibility because, you know, I am a product of IVF. It –

  GIRL TWO. You refer everything to IVF. It’s so irrelevant.

  GIRL ONE. Not to me and the thousands of other, poor, synthetic children it isn’t.

  Pause.

  GIRL TWO. So why do you want the razor? You are going to kill yourself, aren’t you?

  GIRL ONE. No. I am going to shave my hair off.

  GIRL TWO. What? No you can’t. You’ll look terrible.

  GIRL ONE. No I won’t. I’ll look like Natalie Portman.

  GIRL TWO. You haven’t got her bone structure. You have a massive forehead. You will look like an egg. A nit egg.

  GIRL ONE. Or Sinéad O’Connor? Please, I am going to tear my skin off.

  GIRL TWO. No one will employ you –

  GIRL ONE. As a dog-walker? No one gives a shit.

  GIRL TWO. You’ll never get asked out.

  GIRL ONE. Oh no! Like, that’s the worst thing you can imagine.

  GIRL TWO. You’ll never get your boyfriend back. Or… get to give him head.

  GIRL ONE. God, you are such a square.

  GIRL TWO. Oh and you are so hard? Miss ‘I Was Raised in a Barn’.

  GIRL ONE. Um, it was a renovated coach house.

  GIRL TWO. Jesus. First the tattoo and now you’re shaving your head?

  GIRL ONE. The tattoo? The tattoo is totally unrelated, why are you bringing that up?

  GIRL TWO. What are you trying to prove?

  GIRL ONE. Nothing. I just –

  GIRL TWO. Whatever, you just better not ring me up at 3 a.m. again crying about how much you, ‘hate your egg head’, because this square is not interested.

  GIRL ONE. That never happened. I do not hate my tattoo.

  GIRL TWO. Yes you do. You said it looks like a ‘giant brussel sprout’.

  GIRL ONE. It’s a wild rose. There is just quite a lot of foliage around it.

  GIRL TWO. ‘A giant brussel sprout’, growing out of your bum crack.

  GIRL ONE. Well it’s in memory of my dead best friend, so fuck you.

  Pause.

  GIRL TWO. Rose was my friend too.

  Pause.

  You’re right, you would look good with a shaved head. Very This is England.

  GIRL ONE. Sinéad O’Connor is fine by me. Give me the razor, please.

  GIRL TWO holds up her disposable razor.

  GIRL TWO (brandishing the razor). Why don’t I do it for you? You’ll never reach those back bits alone and we wouldn’t want it to look patchy.

  GIRL ONE. No thanks, I’d rather do it myself. You know, mourn the loss of these golden tresses in private.

  GIRL TWO. Ginger tresses. Go on, sit down. I’ll be neat.

  GIRL ONE. Um, no thanks, just give me the razor.

  GIRL TWO. Got any shaving foam?

  GIRL ONE. Alright, creepy.

  GIRL TWO. Not chickening out are you? Triangle?

  GIRL ONE. Is this about me calling you a square? You have got to be less sensitive.

  GIRL TWO. Come on, sit.

  GIRL ONE. I was actually planning on more of an undercut thing… it’s quite niche –

  GIRL TWO. Sit in the chair.

  GIRL ONE. Leave me alone. Okay? I’ve had a long night, I’m emotionally frazzled, I’m still drunk, I’m having an episode –

  GIRL TWO. Sit in the fucking chair.

  She sits. GIRL TWO approaches. Menacing.

  (Singing.) Nothing compares, nothing compares, to you.

  Sound and light fill the stage.

  Scene Three

  A park. March. 2015.

  GIRL TWO is power-walking on the spot for most of their interaction.

  GIRL ONE occasionally attempts to join in, but spends most of the scene stationary, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

  A li
ttle buzz can be faintly heard.

  GIRL TWO. You look cheery.

  GIRL ONE giggles.

  What is it tell me?

  GIRL ONE giggles.

  Are you drunk?

  GIRL ONE jumps a little.

  Are you high?

  GIRL ONE. I’ve got love eggs inside me.

  GIRL TWO. What?

  GIRL ONE. Love eggs? Vibrating eggs. They’re a sex toy?

  GIRL TWO. A what?

  GIRL ONE. God you’re such a square. A sex toy? You know? For pleasure? Two eggs, that you put up your vulva, so they nestle next to your clit and then you press this little button.

  She brandishes a little remote control.

  And they vibrate and massage… stuff and it feels…

  She giggles.

  GIRL TWO. Oh my god, stop it. That is so inappropriate.

  GIRL ONE. No it isn’t. It’s good.

  GIRL TWO. What happens if they, like crack, inside you?

  GIRL ONE. They’re made of rubber, you dork.

  GIRL TWO. I am sorry, I don’t need eggs, I am actually having sex tonight –

  GIRL ONE. It’s funny cos being a product of IVF, I would think the imagery of eggs would kill my excitement, you know?

  GIRL TWO groans.

  But I’ve had them in all morning and it has been… fun. You should get some, they are really portable and come in all sorts of colours. Mine are glow in the dark, look.

  She shows a little remote.

  GIRL TWO. Keep that cum-stained contraption away from me.

  GIRL ONE. It’s just the remote.

  GIRL TWO. No seriously, leave me alone, weirdo.

  GIRL ONE. Well, excuse me for wanting to add a little spark to the drudgery of dog-walking.

  GIRL TWO. Aren’t you meant to have, like, ten dogs on you now?

  GIRL ONE. I like to let them roam free, really stretch their legs.

  GIRL TWO. Don’t you worry they might get run over?

  GIRL ONE. Ah, who cares, this is my last week.

  GIRL TWO. Why? Have you finally got an exhibition?

  GIRL ONE turns off the eggs.

  GIRL ONE. No. The team leader said my attitude was all wrong. That I’ve ‘lost my dedication’.