Gasping - the Play

by Elton, Ben

  (His voice is drowned by the roar of a jet.)

  SCENE SIX

  Huge jet engine noises.

  Front stage, KIRSTEN and SANDY in two business-class British Airways seats.

  SANDY: Well darling, what could be more perfect, a combined honeymoon and business trip.

  KIRSTEN: I couldn’t believe it when Chief gave me the International Portfolio.

  SANDY: Kirsten, the Chief knows I don’t marry turkeys ...

  KIRSTEN: And he knows I don’t marry men who marry turkeys.

  SANDY: Touché Lady ... tell you what, five hours fingering my lap top’s put a right ruddy firework in my jocks. (lap top down) What say we bog up and join the Five Mile High Club?

  KIRSTEN: Been there Sandy, believe me there just isn’t room. I was 18, doing Europe, ended up with some Frenchman having to prise me off one of the taps. Maybe if your secretary had put us in first.

  SANDY: Yes well she won’t make that mistake again.

  KIRSTEN: Good.

  SANDY: No chance, I sacked her by fax from Heathrow. But either way, first or business flying is just a chore to me. I’ve cloud hopped a deal too many flights to be spending my time saying, ‘Oh look how clever, they’ve managed to get the cod mornay and the strawberry cream dessert into the same container.’

  KIRSTEN: Absolutely, anyway, it will be the best of everything for us once we clinch the African deal. Lucky for us Philip took leave, or he’d be heading it up.

  SANDY: Luck darling? Twelve types of hardly. The guy needed a break. Some people bend, some people snap, personally I’m a bender.

  KIRSTEN: He had a good dream.

  SANDY (looking out of window): Well it’s certainly going to come true for these African fellahs, I reckon they’ll strike a hard bargain. They’ve got a phenomenal natural resource just waiting to be sucked, I mean it’ll be worth billions to their economy. The Chiefs told me to bid top dollar. Incoming Third World air could totally undercut European stockpiles. (phone rings) Sorry darling, it’s the new Foton Satellite System, quite superb ... (takes out portable) ... Yo Chief! ! Well this is a pleasure Sir (adjusting tie) ... Marvellous Sir ... What? Uhm cod mornay and strawberry cream dessert ... Yes it is clever how they do that isn’t it ... sorry? With all due respect Sir ... (to KIRSTEN) Pen, pen, pen ... (into phone) Fire away Sir ... (he takes down something) Right you are Sir ... What? Sadly no Sir, Kirsten says the taps get in the way ... Goodbye then Sir ... Kind regards to Lady Chiffley ... (phones of]) Sod it.

  KIRSTEN: So what was that about?

  SANDY: Said he thought I might need Philip’s advice on the African suck up ... gave me the bloke’s bloody number on the Costa Del Lager Lout ... Well that’s what I think of that! (Screws it up ... about to throw away, then slips in pocket.)

  KIRSTEN: Bloody cheek ... (film flicker) Oh God the bloody awful movie ...

  SANDY: Crocodile Dundee Four, this is the one where he becomes President of the Soviet Union ... It’s great ...

  (Plane off)

  SCENE SIX (A)

  Lights up on PHILIP to side of stage in shorts and a sombrero, he takes a sip of wine and clicks a TV remote ... There is a very low bluish flicker, as if he is watching TV ...

  SCENE SEVEN

  We hear a terrible buzzing of flies, people wailing, oxen snorting. BBC reporter with microphone wanders across front of stage. She has a backpack which feeds a tube to a big plastic bubble on her head.

  REPORTER: These people are quite literally suffocating. The air is so thin that they find it difficult to find the energy to move ... (she appears to pick her way over something) Of course there was a time when this region possessed oxygen in abundance. It still would have, were it not for the fact that the rulers of this tortured, divided country, both on the left and right, have systematically sold its resources for arms. Western developers, with the connivance of a corrupt administration, have sucked far beyond agreed international quotas. Now this region is all but uninhabitable. (stops wandering about) While this tiny child gulps painfully at the near empty and useless air, the oxygen that should be her rightful birthright lies unbreathed, far far away, stockpiled in order to protect the international gulp price. That she should be in such desperate straits whilst the means for her survival lies silent, invisible, useless, compacted down into the huge Western Suck and Blowers, is vivid testimony of man’s inhumanity to man. (she stops again) This goat did not die naturally, it was slaughtered by the very people whose survival depends on its milk and meat. The need for air supersedes even the need for food and as the air thins animals are slaughtered in order to stop them breathing and consuming what little oxygen remains. (motioning around her) This relief camp, jointly run by Oxfam and War on Want, is currently supplying breathing space for about four and a half thousand refugees. They have struggled here, gasping for breath from their homes in the outlying hills where the air is now too thin for survival. The scene is biblical in its horror. The relief workers are operating three dilapidated Mark One Lockheart Blowers at the centre of the camp and people scramble desperately trying to find a place near one of the outlets for themselves and their children. The further away one is, of course, the less chance there is of a really good lungful. Added to this is the terrible uncertainty that a sudden gust of empty wind will carry off and dissipate the precious pumpings, leaving the entire camp momentarily without the means to live. Whenever even the slightest breeze is felt, a great moan goes up and people huddle closer, breathing deeply, bracing themselves for the possibility of two or three minutes with nothing to breathe at all ... So far in this present crisis over four million people have been terminally suffocated or ‘died’ from the associated problems of hunger and rioting ... (she addresses the imaginary cameraman, brisk professional tone) Did you get the baby in Barry? The shot won’t work without the baby.

  (The REPORTER wanders off)

  SCENE EIGHT

  A plastic tunnel stretches across the stage, the back half of it anyway, obviously the front part is open for the audience to see in. SANDY bustles on with the CHIEF, both wearing hard hats.

  SANDY: Sorry I was late Chief, some bastard actually broke in and stole my air! Just whipped the balloon right off the sucker, I mean Christ that is sick! Bloody ironic as well, it must have happened while I was in the sitting room watching the ITV Breathathon ... To think while I was trying to get through to the credit card hotline to let a baby breathe, some bugger was actually taking the air from right under my nose.

  CHIEF: Yes, Lady Chiffley doesn’t feel safe outside any more, there’s so many people on the streets hanging about breathing ... Apparently they can’t afford to waft their own homes so they stay out half the night breathing public air.

  SANDY: We saw you on the Breathathon though Sir, donating the Lockheart cheque, it was so great to see you with all those alternative comedians. Terrific for the company image. And so incredibly worthwhile. I couldn’t believe it when they cut to that beautiful little Sudanese baby and said our cheque would keep fifty thousand like her breathing for a year. Kirsten cried ...

  CHIEF: Yes, well it was a fun night and we’re all proud to have done our bit to help, but we have work to do. How are we progressing with the breather tubes?

  SANDY: Terrifically Chief, as you can see, we’re well on course (motioning round). The tubes are fashioned from a fully translucent plastic substitute hence, while enjoying the air, the public user, be they a housewife going about her usual workaday routine, busy executive or overseas visitor, they will be afforded an unrivalled view of the on-street features and the shopping opportunities available outside (showing it all of]).

  CHIEF: Yes, well I must say it looks very smart.

  PHILIP: Many thanks Chief, my people are good, damn good, there isn’t one of them that isn’t being individually groomed. The secondary advantages of the Breather Tube system need, of course, no explanation, so if I can just explain them, they are in the areas of civic cleanliness, and the prevention of civic skin cancer ...


  CHIEF: Sandy, the advantage of these tubes is that if you are inside one you won’t suffocate.

  SANDY: I’m certain they’re going to prove an enormous earner. With councils cutting back so heavily on the strength of their atmosphere, anyone who can possibly afford it will choose to use the Lockheart Oxygenated walkways. Entrance as you can see is facilitated by credit card, so if Access and Visa want in they’d better get ready for the pips to squeak ...

  CHIEF: Excellent. Excellent.

  SANDY: Shops who want to be connected up to the tube will of course have to pay massive rental on their entrance ...

  CHIEF: And of course they’ll all have to connect because any halfway decent customer is going to be in the first-class tubes ...

  SANDY: Uhm, actually I was speaking to Kirsten about that term Sir, she felt the term ‘first-class ‘rather divisive and suggested the more user-friendly ‘Alpine class’.

  CHIEF: I was not aware we had anything to apologize for Sandy.

  SANDY: Well either way Sir, I think a major back-slapping session is in order Chief, these tubes have definitely opened up another serious market for Lockheart Oxy.

  CHIEF (snaps): They haven’t opened anything up! All they have done is managed to recoup a little of what we are losing through the never-ending cut backs in oxygen consumption that our industry faces every day ...

  SANDY: Yes but ...

  CHIEF: There are no buts, just facts. We have developed these tubes in response to dizzy shoppers demanding breathable air at street level.

  SANDY: Exactly and ...

  CHIEF: And the reason that demand exists is because of Poll Tax capped councils cutting further and further back on the amount of oxygen they waft. Do you know what’s going to happen next? I shall tell you, local councils are going to ask themselves, why, if the private sector can enclose the environment, can’t they? They’ll build their own civic walkways beside ours ... The simple fact is that people are learning to live with much less air.

  SANDY: Pretty chilling thought Sir.

  CHIEF: I remember young Philip saying that the party was over a few months before he went on leave. I hope the poor chap isn’t proved right.

  SANDY: The guy just couldn’t take the pressure of down-swing Sir.

  CHIEF: The short-term solution is simple, we sell less air, but we charge more for it. I feel certain that the other members of the cartel will have no objections to raising the minimum gulp price. What happens in the long-term we shall have to ponder, but believe me, there is a recession coming, and when it does, it will be a cruel wind that blows and it won’t bring any of us any good.

  (A huge wind is heard.

  The muffled crumps of explosions. The theatre flickers orange with flames, interspersed with bright red-orange flashes.)

  SCENE NINE

  CHIEF’s office.

  The huge windows glow red, there are clearly enormous fires going on outside, occasionally there is a hot flash followed by a muffled crump. Obviously the effect should be dramatic. KIRSTEN, SANDY, the CHIEF and PHILIP (possibly heavily sun-tanned). Perhaps another trolley of champagne.

  CHIEF: Well now Philip my dear boy, it’s splendid to have you back on side.

  PHILIP: It’s good to be back Chief. I’m tanned, I’m fit, I’m raring like a rarerer.

  CHIEF: I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, you’re my top man, you know that. Sandy’s been heading up your presidency portfolio in your absence, but I know how delighted he’ll be to hand the reigns back to you.

  SANDY (obviously not): Delighted, Philip. It’s a total pleasure ...

  CHIEF: Sandy’s good Philip, damn good, but I need creative thinking at the very top. Some people discover Pot Noodles, some people make sure that they’re stacked neatly on shelves. I think Sandy understands the difference.

  SANDY (a bit taken aback): Well, I ...

  KIRSTEN (defensively): Sir Chiffley, I don’t think that’s ...

  CHIEF: So tell me Philip, you’ve been on the outside looking in for a while, what are your impressions of the situation. Not idyllic by any means I imagine.

  PHILIP: Chief I’m a straight talking man, I’m not the sort of person to beat up a bush or waste words on mincers. The situation as I see it is serious.

  SANDY: ... Yes it’s serious Chief, but with major plant closures ...

  KIRSTEN: ... Strategic lobbying, saturation mail-shots ...

  CHIEF: Shut up Sandy, you too Kirsten. Philip’s right, the whole industry has gone haywire, it’s the 1973 oil glut crisis all over again. There is simply too much bloody air around.

  PHILIP (surprised): Too much air Chief? Difficult to see that, I had to step over a couple of prostrate gaspers just between the car and the office.

  CHIEF: Exactly. People aren’t breathing enough of the bloody stuff. Philip my boy, it would be as well if we faced the facts squarely and like men. A combination of huge stockpiles and massively decreased demand have forced this great industry of ours into a vortex-like recession. It’s time to face the music. I’m afraid it’s going to be pretty unpleasant.

  PHILIP: Bananarama time.

  SANDY: Philip’s right of course, the situation is bloody serious. Kirsten’s been running background makes on ...

  KIRSTEN: Yes I’ve got Venn diagrams that will ...

  CHIEF: Young lady, when I’m up to my neck in shit I don’t need a graph to tell me how deep it is ... (SANDY laughs sycophantically, KIRSTEN shoots him angry look) There aren’t many single industries big enough to create recessions that grow into full-scale depressions ... oil, automobiles, dieting, cosmetic surgery in the States ...

  PHILIP: Phew! You’re right there Chief, I remember when Cher imploded. The whole industry collapsed. Let me tell you, when it comes to cosmetic surgery, if the bottom falls out, you might as well go home.

  CHIEF: And likewise with air Philip; if we go down, the rest follows.

  PHILIP: Nice to be up there with the big ones Chief. (he crosses to the window) I must say this African oxygen doesn’t half burn.

  SANDY: It should burn, the price Kirsten and I paid for it.

  KIRSTEN: We had a marvellous trip, Philip. I brought you back a Nobbuck made out of dried bark and berries. It rattles when you shake it.

  PHILIP: Hmm, yes, actually I’ve been meaning to ask you about this Chief. I mean, seeing as how it cost us so much and well, seeing as how the world is positively seething with purple faced gaspers, and I must stress here Chief, children are involved ... is it actually really one hundred per cent necessary to burn so much oxygen? I mean, really?

  CHIEF: Philip you know as well as I do that there is only one way to guarantee an adequate supply of oxygen and that is for the world to realize that if it wants to breathe it’s going to have to accept reasonable pricing levels ...

  PHILIP: Hmm yes, but ...

  CHIEF: The only way we can hope to recoup some of the cost of total world sucking is to force up the price, and the only way to do that is to rationalize stocks. (another huge glow and ‘grump’ noise at the windows) ... We can’t sell the stuff, and having so much of it hanging around totally destabilizes the price ...

  PHILIP (staring out of the window): I still can’t help feeling somehow that people could have breathed that stuff ...

  SANDY: Philip’s been away a while Sir. I don’t think he understands the new reality.

  PHILIP: I think I’m looking at it Sandy.

  KIRSTEN: The whole effect will look great on my corporate video. It’ll really gee up the sales force.

  CHIEF: Have you any idea how much grain was destroyed in the eighties Philip? While people starved, how much milk was poured away while babies screamed with want? Nobody likes it Philip, but you can’t just give the stuff away; that way lies financial anarchy.