Plays One Read online

  Sarah Daniels Plays: One

  Ripen Our Darkness, The Devil’s Gateway, Masterpieces, Neaptide, Byrthrite

  Ripen Our Darkness: ‘This rough-cut scenario of role-playing musical chairs and outlandish social comment marks a most promising debut and gives off the unmistakable aroma of new talent.’

  Michael Coveney, Financial Times

  The Devil’s Gateway: ‘Ms Daniels’ strength lies in her ability to write comically but incisively about the lives of women and to prove that the personal is political … gloriously funny.’

  Lyn Gardner, City Limits

  Masterpieces: ‘The play has bite, anger and tenacity and many of its arguments are true … the supreme merit of Ms Daniels’ combative work is that it makes me want to argue back.’

  Michael Billington, Guardian

  Neaptide: ‘A lacerating wit subversively exposing how, under patriarchy, women are pushed to the very edge of lunatic behaviour.’ Carole Woddis, City Limits

  Byrthrite: ‘Daniels puts her case with vigour and wit.’ Claire Armistead, Financial Times

  Sarah Daniels’ plays include Ripen Our Darkness (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London, 1981); Ma’s Flesh is Grass (Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield, 1981); The Devil’s Gateway (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London 1983); Masterpieces (Manchester Royal Exchange, 1983; Royal Court Theatre, London, 1983/4); Neaptide, winner of the 1982 George Devine Award (Cottesloe, National Theatre, London, 1986); Byrthrite (Royal Court Theatre, London 1986); The Gut Girls (Albany Empire, Deptford, 1988) and Beside Herself (Royal Court, London, 1990)

  by the same author

  Sarah Daniels Plays: 2

  Beside Herself, Gut Girls, Head-Rot Holiday,

  The Madness of Esme and Shaz

  Masterpieces

  Beside Herself

  SARAH DANIELS

  PLAYS: ONE

  Ripen Our Darkness

  The Devil’s Gateway

  Masterpieces

  Neaptide

  Byrthrite

  Contents

  Sarah Daniels: A Chronology

  Introduction

  RIPEN OUR DARKNESS

  THE DEVIL’S GATEWAY

  MASTERPIECES

  NEAPTIDE

  BYRTHRITE

  A Chronology

  Ripen Our Darkness, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London

  1981

  Ma’s Flesh is Grass, Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield

  1981

  Masterpieces, Manchester Royal Exchange

  1983

  The Devil’s Gateway, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London

  1983

  Neaptide, Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre, London

  1986

  Byrthrite, Royal Court Theatre, London

  1986

  The Gut Girls, Albany Empire, London

  1988

  Beside Herself, Royal Court Theatre, London

  1990

  Introduction

  I didn’t set out to be a ‘Feminist Playwright’. I didn’t set out to be a playwright at all. I can’t remember wanting to be a writer when I was at school. I didn’t even like drama, not the ‘taught’ sort anyway. My introduction to Shakespeare was Henry V for ‘O’ level, which was ‘learnt’ by having to read it out loud, around the class, in turn. Most of the lesson was spent trying to ensure that you would be able to pronounce the words without making a fool of yourself when the time came. To my amazement, I found that the first time I went to the theatre I enjoyed it. The two experiences were just incomparable.

  When I started work, I went to the theatre once a week, and gradually became more discerning: seeing fewer and fewer West End shows and more and more plays. Convinced that my life needed ‘putting in order’ (an idea I got from Doris Lessing, or more accurately, one of her books) I started to write a play. I’d read an article in the London weekly listings magazine Time Out, which said that the Royal Court Theatre replied to anyone who sent in a play. So in October 1978 I did just that and received this response from the reader. (I discovered several years later that John Burgess, who directed Neaptide, had written it.)

  The problem with the play, like all works dealing with exposed personal emotion, is that it hovers on the edge of melodrama. It is probably too packed to be quite workable. The tone blurs into the sensational. What I enjoyed about it was the vigour of the dialogue. Not many people are writing like this for women – casual, angry talk, shrewd, bitter, violent, witty, etc. Kath’s breakdown rang absolutely true and the various appalling men are drawn with an accuracy that makes you wince.

  Not only did the report encourage me to write another play, I now realise it was an astute piece of criticism relevant to the other plays in this volume. The bit about melodrama was absolutely true, but then to think that writing a play will put your life in order is rather a melodramatic notion. The worst thing a play can be is embarrassing. Being unintentionally melodramatic is equally high in the ‘cringe’ awards. The second worst thing a play can be is boring. I think I still write first drafts which are too packed. I have to keep reminding myself that putting more in does not necessarily make a more interesting play.

  Ripen our Darkness was deliberately written in a sort of semidetached style so that it couldn’t be accused of the dreaded ‘M’ word. I also tried to keep it from being boring. Re-reading it now I am struck by the energy of the piece, the underlying unselfconscious anger. I don’t think it is too packed, but nobody, except women, thought the men were drawn with any accuracy.

  In the introduction to her book Letters from a War Zone Andrea Dworkin described her feelings after the publication of her first book: ‘I thought that was it – I was a writer. (Sort of like being an archangel.) Forever.’ When Ripen our Darkness was produced, so did I.

  Still in my archangel state, I attended a workshop as part of ‘Women Live’ in 1982, led by Caryl Churchill and Annie Castledine. Annie suggested I write a play about Greenham Common, which I started to do, but became very stuck and decided to write about a woman living in Bethnal Green instead. I have never written to become immortal but I do wish now I hadn’t put in quite so many references to television programmes. The Devil’s Gateway, incorporating a flavour of the Radio and T. V. Times of the period, now, like a lot of contemporary plays, looks dated.

  I have since discovered that writing gets harder not easier. I have also learnt about the collective nature of theatre. Bryony Lavery has described it as ‘a big nutty fruit cake made up of the script, the director, the designer, actors, technicians and audience’. When it works, it does so because everyone has invested their own talent and passion in it. A brilliant script does not necessarily make a brilliant play. Similarly, a dull script can glow with brilliant direction, design and acting. The playwright has to learn to ‘let go’ to enable the process to happen. There will always be things in a production which were not how I saw them in my head. The skills and imagination which directors and actors bring can enhance a play greatly. (Although, I am sometimes left feeling like a big nutty fruit cake all on my own and, at the risk of sounding sensational, hover dangerously on the edge of wanting to shout ‘No, I didn’t mean it like that at all’.)

  I tried to ensure that nobody could misinterpret Masterpieces. Unashamedly an issue-based play, I started writing it after talking to a friend of mine who was doing a dissertation on women and male violence. I’d also read Andrea Dworkin’s book Pornography – Men Possessing Women, and attended a meeting at the University of London where members of ‘Women Against Violence Against Women’ were speaking. I was recently introduced to someone who took it upon himself to inform me that I’d done the Women’s Movement a disservice by ‘making Rowena behave in such an irrational manner’. (He was referring to Scene fourteen.) Somehow harassin
g women is seen as rational behaviour. Being angry, or worse, fighting back, is seen as irrational behaviour. I felt so strongly about the ideas in the play that, in an attempt to guard against being misunderstood, I censored myself from writing the detail and contradictions which give a character depth.

  Claire in Neaptide suffers slightly from this authorial self-censorship. For, like Radclyffe Hall, vis à vis her heroine in the Well of Loneliness, I was so aware of the prejudice which exists against lesbians that I made Claire a bit too good and/or ‘right on’ to be true. I was determined not to provide anyone with an excuse for thinking ‘Perhaps her ex-husband should have got custody anyway’. I now think Neaptide would benefit from trimming, but once it was produced and published I felt it was somehow ‘sealed’. Out of the plays included here it remains my favourite for reasons I shall not reveal for fear of being sensational, sentimental, or worse … melodramatic.

  For Byrthrite I did, for me, an enormous amount of reading and research. I went several times to Mistley and Manningtree in Essex where Mathew Hopkins, the self-appointed ‘Witch Finder General’ (nicknamed ‘the pricker’) had based himself. I stood at the edge of the pond where women had had the ‘choice’ of drowning and proving they weren’t witches, or floating, and proving they were. I shivered at the thought of it still being there. I wanted to write a play about the implications and dangers of reproductive technology for women. I thought that setting it in the seventeenth century – the time when the role of healer was taken out of the hands of women and established in the (male) profession of doctor – would give a poignancy to the ideas expressed in the play. With hindsight it might be accused of being too ambitious ‘to be quite workable’.

  Feminism is now, like panty-girdle, a very embarrassing word. Once seen as liberating, it is now considered to be restrictive, passé, and undesirable to wear. I didn’t set out to further the cause of Feminism. However, I am proud if some of my plays have added to its influence.

  Sarah Daniels

  December 1990

  RIPEN OUR DARKNESS

  Ripen Our Darkness was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London, on 7 September 1981, with the following cast:

  MARY

  Gwen Taylor

  ANNA

  SUSAN

  TARA

  Cecily Hobbs

  DAPHNE

  RENE

  Janette Legge

  JULIE

  Carole Harrison

  DAVID

  ALF

  David Calder

  PAUL

  ROGER

  MARSHALL

  John Gillett

  Directed by Carole Hayman

  Designed by Mary Moore

  Lighting by Steve Whitson

  Scene One

  MARY’s kitchen, Sunday morning. She has just made tea. Presently

  DAVID enters, wearing a dressing-gown over a shirt and tie.

  DAVID. Good morning, dear, although that greeting seems almost inappropriate now, it being approximately nine fifty-five.

  MARY (flustered). I can’t believe it. Fancy sleeping through the alarm.

  DAVID. Even if you had managed to wake up when it went, it was set for seven-thirty so we’d be half an hour behind already.

  MARY (confused). But David, I’m sure that I set it for seven.

  DAVID (kindly). Never mind. We’ve obviously both got to try and make up for lost time.

  MARY. What would you like for breakfast?

  DAVID. Oh, anything. (He crosses to the window. MARY gives him a cup of tea.) Thank you. Well, would you look at that. This is the day that the Lord hath made, and very beautiful it is too. The sort of day that makes you glad to be alive. And that reminds me, Mary, I don’t like to mention it but it took me almost seven minutes to locate my underpants this morning.

  MARY. Second drawer, dear. Will toast and cereal be all right?

  DAVID. I know that now. Bacon and egg would go down well, but toast will suffice. And perhaps next time you reorganise the bedroom you would leave me a little plan or map as a guide, then I might be able to negotiate my way around the furniture, ha, ha. Maybe we could have a photo, ha, ha, then we’d be halfway to a National Trust booklet.

  MARY. But, David, they’ve been in the second drawer for the last thirty years.

  DAVID. While you’re there a couple of tomatoes would be nice. I’m sure they could not have been there that long, dear.

  MARY. I remember distinctly re-lining that chest of drawers on Remembrance Sunday, 1950.

  DAVID. Goodness me, you mean to say that with the war still fresh in our memories, you spent its fifth anniversary sorting underwear?

  MARY. I did stop for two minutes.

  DAVID. I should hope so. Well, no matter, it’s of very little consequence now. What I meant to say is, perhaps when you have a minute you could enlighten me as to the whereabouts of my trousers.

  MARY (not listening). I wonder how many minutes’ silence we’ll have to observe after nuclear war …

  DAVID. Really, dear, your sense of humour is quite macabre. But unfortunately it does not get me any further in the quest for my trousers.

  MARY (weary). Where did you take them off?

  DAVID. Ah ha, now that theory is good for as far as it goes. However, if I were to follow it through to its logical conclusion it would imply that they should be by the side of the bed where I stepped out of them.

  MARY. They’re folded on the back of the chair.

  DAVID. Far be it from me, dear, but if you persist in allowing yourself to indulge in this rather morbid train of thought, how do you hope to get lunch organised in time for church?

  MARY. But David …

  DAVID. We don’t want to start the day off with ‘buts’, now do we?

  MARY. I don’t think I’ll be able …

  DAVID. Now please, let’s not start that nonsense. It looks dreadful if you, of all people, aren’t there. For goodness’ sake, if the church warden’s wife isn’t able to come to church how do you expect us to reach the masses of Potter’s Bar?

  MARY. It’s just that …

  DAVID. And remember what we agreed, eh? What we worked out about being methodical, and getting things sorted out in a logical order so that it will give you more time to do things, to get important things fitted into the day. Especially Sunday.

  MARY. Yes, David, I am trying.

  DAVID. I know you are, I know. And this morning I’m going to help you out by getting the breakfast. How’s that for men’s lib, eh? Now, you sit down there. (MARY sits absorbed.) Well, you needn’t look so grim about it.

  MARY (she has not heard). Sorry, dear?

  DAVID. I said, no need to be so glum.

  MARY (trying hard to please). Oh no, it’s very sweet of you. Thank you.

  DAVID. And so to the gas.

  DAVID goes to the cooker.

  MARY. It’s just that we’re a bit behind anyway, and you’ve got a busy day ahead.

  DAVID. That’s precisely why I’m giving you a hand. Hmm, the gas doesn’t seem to want to light.

  MARY. Oh, no, I’m sorry, I forgot. You’ll have to use the matches. The cooker’s so old. I did ask …

  DAVID. Don’t tell me, it hasn’t worked since the first Remembrance Sunday.

  MARY. Strange really. I was always surprised that they didn’t take it to turn into ammunition.

  DAVID. Next step bacon. Where might that be?

  MARY. In the fridge, dear.

  DAVID. Ah ha, coming on in leaps and bounds. (He looks in the fridge.) Sorry, there appears to be no evidence of it here.

  MARY. Second shelf, on the right, next to the half-eaten trifle.

  DAVID (removing the contents of the fridge item by item). No, I’m sorry, dear, I’m prepared to say that it’s not here.

  MARY (gets up slowly). There, dear. (She takes the bacon from the fridge and hands it to him.)

  DAVID. Now I was blowed if I could see it.

  MARY (cheerfully). I’ll do it, Da
vid … Please.

  DAVID. The best-laid schemes and all that. Ah, well, don’t say I didn’t try.

  MARY. Did you hear Simon come in last night?

  DAVID. Considering the time, I think we should scrap the egg and bacon idea or I won’t have room for lunch. A piece of toast, Mary.

  MARY. Look at this mess. These plates. They come in at all hours, help themselves to something, I do wish they’d be a little more considerate.

  DAVID. Boys will be boys, and they’re not going to get any better if you persistently nag them, now are they?

  MARY. I wouldn’t mind, but Simon’s twenty-three now.

  DAVID. Goodness me, dear, we’re not going to get very far if we keep nattering. Now, where’s your pen and paper? I find things never seem so insurmountable if they’re made into a list. For example, it will be easier to sort out the underwear drawer more than once in three decades, eh? Ha ha.

  MARY. Pardon?

  DAVID. Just a little joke, dear. Now, let me get those trousers on. What would Roger think if he knew his church warden was still prancing about in his dressing-gown at ten-thirty on a Sunday morning, that’s what I’d like to know.

  DAVID goes out.

  MARY (sits down, starts to write). Sunday. One, Dinner. Pick mint from garden for peas. Take cheesecake out of freezer … (She looks up at the clock.) Too late, it will never thaw. (She continues writing.) Tinned fruit and ice cream for pudding, cheesecake for tea. (She stops writing.) What about supper? I must be getting old, running out of imagination. (She recommences writing.) Dear God, why have I come to dread Sunday?

  PAUL enters.

  PAUL. Morning, Mum.

  MARY. (startled). Morning, dear. At least you’re up.

  PAUL. What’s for breakfast?

  MARY. Not long till lunchtime. Can’t you hold out?