by Trilby James
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In the speech she talks of her right arm being on fire. Alicia had a pre-existing injury to her right arm which she was able to use to create the lie.
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Decide to what extent you wish to play Alicia playing ‘Tania’.
WHAT SHE WANTS
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To find a sense of belonging.
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To be loved (the story of Dave is complete fiction).
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To be admired and noticed.
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To help (despite her web of lies, she was an effective campaigner for those who had survived).
KEYWORDS glad here survive family relief help forgotten
Tania
My name is Tania Head.
I come from Spain, originally, but I’ve lived in New York for five years now, and I consider it my home. I do.
I’m glad to be here.
I’m glad to be here. That was something I learnt to say. When I did my course in Business English. I’m glad to be here. Insert at the start of presentation.
But when I say it today I mean it.
I am, truly, glad to be here, because I was on the seventy-eighth floor of the South Tower that day, and I could, very easily, have not been here now. I was one of only nineteen people above where the plane hit to survive.
I am glad to be here.
Although I’m only meeting you for the first time, you already feel like a kind of family. When I found your site and read what you’ve written about your experiences that day it was such a relief.
Shall I tell my story, is that something you – […]
I should start with Dave. He was my fiancé and my best friend. We met when we both went for the same cab. I was in a rush, so was he, who isn’t, so we shared it. And we shared almost everything else from then on. It was the first week that I was here. When I wrote and told my friends in Spain, I’ve met an American man, in a yellow cab, they thought I was joking. And I said, no, it happens! Even to someone like me. Dave was all-American, the athletic type, he played basketball in college, he was gorgeous. And he made me feel like the most beautiful woman on earth. So you can see how special he was.
He was killed in the North Tower, where he worked.
I was in the South Tower, as I said, on the seventy-eighth floor. When I looked around, just after it hit, it was like a horror movie. I was choking on the smell of burnt skin and people’s insides. And I realised my right arm was on fire. It’s funny, what came to me is what I learnt at school. I threw myself to the floor, and rolled to put it out.
She raises the right arm of her cardigan to reveal a scar.
The doctors have been wonderful.
In amongst all the chaos, all the screaming and the panic, I kept thinking about my white wedding dress, and swearing my love for Dave, we were supposed to get married that October, and I believe it was him, on his way to Heaven, who led me out of there. I just kept thinking of our wedding day, and it kept me alive.
In Spain we have a saying, a Dios rogando y con el mazo dando. You have something similar, God helps those who help themselves. We should help each other. At the moment we have to stand outside the site with the tourists and the souvenir sellers. It’s disgraceful. I would like to do what I can to secure access to Ground Zero, for those of us who feel it would help in the grieving process.
I worked for Merrill Lynch, that’s what I was doing in the North Tower. I want to use whatever skills I have for, for good, I suppose.
We shouldn’t be forgotten. I know I sound like a politician, and God knows we’ve had enough of them, but, I think it’s very important.
We shouldn’t be forgotten.
No Romance
Nancy Harris
WHO Laura, thirty-six, from Dublin.
TO WHOM Gail, thirty-six, a photographer.
WHERE Gail’s studio.
WHEN Present day. Morning.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Laura has breast cancer. She is soon to start her treatment and thinks it will be best to end her one-year relationship with her boyfriend Simon. Before she does so, and with his fortieth birthday approaching, she wants to give him a present to remember her by. An album of sexy photographs of herself. She has contacted Gail, a girl with whom she was at school and who is now a professional photographer known for her work of Dublin’s redlight district. As the play starts, Laura is dressed as King Arthur’s wife ‘Guinevere’. She has brought to the shoot a bag full of dressing-up clothes. She wants Gail to photograph her in various guises. She has a corset that Simon bought for her which she wants to team with a top hat and hot pants for a ‘Moulin Rouge’ effect. During the course of the session, Laura breaks down and tells Gail about the cancer. Gail is not convinced that any of these looks or poses is the best approach and thinks that Laura would be better off having some nude shots taken. Laura does not want this; she has not told Simon about the cancer, and she believes a present of a photograph of her in the nude would be like asking Simon to say goodbye to her body. She explains to Gail, ‘I want to be sexy. I want to be strong. I want to be the woman he bought this corset for.’ She finally reveals to Gail that she has no intention of telling Simon about the cancer. She will give him the album, celebrate his birthday and then leave him.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
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Laura believes she is dying. Her mother died of cancer. She knows that at the age of thirty-six the disease can be aggressive. However, Laura will quickly resort to humour to cover her pain, refusing to see herself as a victim.
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Gail is gay. Her ten-year relationship with her partner has ended badly. Decide to what extent that, at thirty-six, both women are having to confront the fact that life has either turned out or not turned out as they had hoped, feared or expected.
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Laura and Gail were not close at school. During the course of the play, as their loneliness is revealed, they become strangely bonded.
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Queen Medb of Connaught is a warrior queen from the ‘epic pre-Christian Irish story, The Táin Bó Cúailnge.
WHAT SHE WANTS
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To preserve the moment before she must undergo surgery. Decide to what extent the album is as much for her as it is for Simon. A memory of herself for herself.
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To capture an image of herself before she starts treatment.
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To avoid the mess and pain of a failed relationship.
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To maintain her dignity.
KEYWORDS out of the blue fairytale happily-ever-after rescue cleanly broken
Laura
I don’t know if I will tell him. Simon. Ever. […] I mean… if I give Simon a picture of me – naked for his birthday and then I go and tell him I have cancer, isn’t that like – isn’t that like I’m asking him to say goodbye to my body? […] I don’t want to say goodbye to my body. […] So why would I want him to say goodbye to my body. I want to be sexy. I want to be strong. I want to be the woman he bought this corset for – I don’t want to be my mother lying in a box. And if I don’t tell him, he won’t know – […] Not if I leave him. […] The thing you need to understand is – I didn’t think I’d meet a man like Simon. I didn’t think I’d meet anyone, to be honest. I hit thirty-five. And I thought – that’s it, I’m done. I’m not even looking any more because it’s never going to happen. I’m just one of those people. I’m just one of those people who is meant to be on their own and that’s fine. I like my job, I have my friends – who needs a fella? And then – out of the blue, Simon. And he’s great. And we fall in love and he wants to marry me and spend the rest of his life with me and it’s like – it’s like every fucking fairytale you’ve ever bloody read. It’s like happily-ever-after multiplied by ten – because Simon’s a good man. He really is. If I tell him, he’ll be fantastic. He’ll drive me to radiotherapy, he’ll help me change bandages, he’ll bring me breakfast in bed – but he’ll be doing it kn
owing I’ve a lump in my breast. He’ll be doing it knowing I’ve cancer. […] And even though I love all these – stories about Guinevere and Medb and what have you – I’ve never wanted anyone to rescue me. Not like that. Not from cancer. So I figure if I do this photo album and I give him a great birthday – a birthday he can never forget and then I end it – cleanly – before they take me into hospital next week… Things can stay just the way they are. Now. Before it all gets – […] broken.
Beat.
And then I’ll always get to be the woman he bought this corset for. And I’d like that. I’d like to – know that.
Pandas
Rona Munro
WHO Lin Han, nineteen, Chinese.
TO WHOM Madeleine, a forty-something woman, who has just shot her ex-partner, and James, a police officer – although, because she is speaking Chinese, he cannot understand her.
WHERE The interview room of a police station in Edinburgh, Scotland.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Lin Han, who works for a rug company in China, has travelled to Edinburgh to establish further links with a distribution company which is looking to import Chinese goods. Over an eighteen-month period and before she arrives, she has exchanged emails and jpegs with Jie Hui, a young Chinese man who works for the British distribution firm. During that time she has fallen in love with him, and when she arrives in the UK she hopes that he will feel the same. Before the play starts, they have been up all night talking, and when we, the audience, first meet them, she is still questioning him about his feelings towards her. He tells her he cannot feel the same way, that it is too soon and that he would like to slow down a bit. He then has to go to meet Alan, his business partner, and suggests to Lin Han that she meet with him and Alan an hour later. Alan has forgotten to bring the keys to his office, and, while he and Jie Hui are trying to gain entry, Alan is shot in the bottom by Alan’s ex-girlfriend Madeleine. But when Lin Han shows up at the allotted time and Alan is lying injured, she is convinced it is Jie Hui who has tried to kill him. While Madeleine is being questioned about the attack by James, a police officer, Lin Han rushes into the police station claiming that Jie Hui is guilty of the murder. She is speaking in Mandarin and no one can understand her. Madeleine, who is an entomologist and has spent much time in China studying the lice that are found in the fur of giant pandas, happens to speak Mandarin. As there is no interpreter available at such short notice, and in need of more information about the attack, James asks Madeleine if she will translate.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
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Although the speech is in English, Lin Han is actually speaking in Mandarin Chinese. You don’t therefore need to speak with a heavy Chinese accent or in broken English. You may even wish to speak with a standard English accent or your own regional dialect.
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The play follows the stories of six characters whose lives are strangely interwoven. Read the play to understand all of the connections.
WHAT SHE WANTS
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To report Jie Hui. However much she loves him, she feels compelled to tell the truth.
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To share her story. People in love often need to talk about it.
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Comfort and reassurance, despite the fact that she knows she has been foolish. Decide to what extent Madeleine’s presence, being a woman, allows her to be open about her feelings.
KEYWORDS upset happy smile joke marry sad angry crying love horrible crazy real
Lin Han
I am Wang Lin Han. I am nineteen years old. I am here as a representative of the Panda Joy rug company. This is my passport. This is my visa.
I’m sorry. My English is very good but I’m upset. […] I’m very upset and I can’t think of the words. […] I am our company’s international representative. Because of my language skills. […] I have been in communication with the representative of a distribution company. He finds contacts and investors to distribute the products of small-scale Chinese manufacturing companies into Europe. […] Sometimes I wrote to this man in our language and sometimes we wrote in English, to practise. We had a very… happy correspondence, we made each other smile… at least… he put smileys in his messages too. So after a few months my father made a joke. He said this man would be the perfect husband for me because it would be so good for the family business. You see my father and my mother would like me to marry very soon but they know I think I shouldn’t get married before I’m thirty. So they say things like that, as if they’re joking, but I know they mean it too. […] So I stopped the messages with the smileys in them. It was all business. And then he sent me another message with sad faces, and he asked if I was angry with him… […] I thought, I’ve studied English for so long because I wanted to travel. And here I was just working in the same little factory I grew up in, in the same little town. I thought, this man could help me travel. It would be great for business so my mum and dad would be happy, I could escape without anyone crying about it.
And I’ve been in love and it was really horrible. It’s really horrible to want someone and be in their power like that. […] So… I thought I should think about a relationship with this man. It would be a practical choice. It would get me what I want. I asked him to send me a picture. […] It was a beautiful picture. I loved his picture. […] And it wasn’t a studio picture! It wasn’t lit and airbrushed and all shined up in Photoshop. It was just a casual picture. He was on the beach. He was smiling at me with such a look… […] I fell in love with his picture. I have to be honest now. I hoped he would love me first but that’s what happened. I fell in love with a picture and a set of letters. Like a crazy girl who doesn’t know what’s real. […] He was right. He was right, I know nothing about him. And now I love him. Do you know the story about the baby ducks? […] The first thing a baby duck sees moving when it breaks through its shell it will love as its mother. You can make them love cats that want to eat them or chase after bicycle wheels and die in the road. I was just breaking out into the world. I’m a baby duck and I’m following a killer. […] I saw him with the body of this man. He said it had nothing to do with him, he was talking and talking and I looked in his eyes and I saw a lie. Now I’ve realised I’m a stupid little duckling with shell in my baby feathers. I’ve stepped out into the world and it’ll squash me. I thought I knew how to do anything but I’m just a stupid little girl. […] And I really do love him. Even though he probably is a killer and a liar.
Perve
Stacey Gregg
WHO Layla, eighteen, Southern Irish.
TO WHOM A police officer.
WHERE A police station.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED This is the only time that Layla appears in the play. She has decided to go to the police following rumours that her ex-boyfriend Nick’s best friend, Gethin, is a pervert. As she explains in the speech that follows, she believes Nick showed Gethin a naked photograph he took of her and that Gethin shared it. Layla does not refer to Gethin by name, but as ‘him’ or ‘he’.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
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We don’t know much about Layla except that:
She has a little sister who is called ‘Electrolux’ at school, because, like Layla, she is considered frigid.
Her father is described as a ‘Bible basher’.
She dated Nick.
She took time off school when her naked picture was posted online.
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Use this opportunity to create a fully rounded character for yourself.
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Although it is acutely embarrassing, decide to what extent she might be enjoying the attention that this opportunity has afforded her. Is it an easy story for her to recount or is it painful?
WHAT SHE WANTS
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Justice.
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Revenge.
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To protect others from what she herself went through.
KEYWOR
DS embarrassed stupid sweet chivalrous messing alien beautiful muppet muses mortifying disappear bent
Layla
sorry, yeah.
Uhh. It’s something – it’s something I never. I never did nothing about it then – at the time – cos I – you know I was embarrassed. Stupid. Stupid to have… But then I didn’t think. I didn’t know. He was – I went out with him for like, seven months, which is like for ever when you’re like sixteen. And he was older so it was really, like, cool. He had a Corsa. He was really nice. I don’t really – I don’t think he would’ve meant to… he was – I donno – must’ve been twenty-one? Twenty. Four years older. Well, three and a half. But he was so sweet, he never made me feel little, you know? You know what, he didn’t even sleep with me. Swear to God. Even though we went out for so long, isn’t that cool? Amazing? In this day and age. I mean, we lied, we said we’d done it cos otherwise his friends would’ve been assholes. Mine too. But we never did. Well, we did eventually, like after we broke up, like. Anyway. Kind of. Chivalrous or something. But the phones with cameras, everyone has them now. They’ve got like supercameras like underwater optical-zoom fifty-megapixel shit and stuff – sorry – I’ve a really nice Nokia – but those were only out really, the good ones, when we were going out. Nick had one. We were messing about, just. You know. And it was really hot. Really hot I think, he had his T-shirt off first. We were, you know. Messing about. And I took my top off, it was a top from H&M, nice maroon vest so it was. I took it off you know and my bra – I mean it is, it was half my fault – and he took this stupid fucking picture – and I was like ‘delete it! Gross! I look like an ALIEN or something!’ But he was like ‘no, it’s beautiful.’ He said – I know I’m a muppet – but at the time it was so like – he said it would be like in olden times when they carried little portraits and sexy pictures of their muses or something – seriously don’t know where he came up with that stuff – so he didn’t delete it. Like, I don’t know, I seriously don’t know how it came to be… I mean, all I know is that the only other person who had such a snazzy phone, or who would’ve had like, access to Nick’s or who – and I can’t believe he would – but if Nick did show him – he swears to God he didn’t – but I mean, I was out of school for like two months. I had to repeat after the summer. And starting a new school in September was like, the most mortifying, humiliating thing I’ve ever had to do. Some of the teachers knew, but they didn’t really know how to deal with it I think. It wasn’t in the papers or anything the way it is now – they had other problems you know? And I didn’t want any action taken – I just wanted to like, disappear. It felt like – like –
