Crooked Dances

Robin French

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350136519
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Playwriting

You've heard of magic hour right? We're in it. right now. Journalist Katy is desperate for her big break, and an interview in Paris with world famous concert pianist Silvia de Zingaro looks like just her chance. But the odds are against her. After a disastrous interview, Katy feels certain there's a bigger story there than meets the eye. She hunts for clues, finding Silvia has a collection of mystical books and an apparent fixation with composer Erik Satie. Just as Katy's hope begins to fade, a mysterious night-time encounter with the pianist may well give her the scoop she's looking for… This compelling new play examines music, time and attention in our modern digital age. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon in June 2019.

Scene Seven

Silvia’s living room. The darkest part of the night. A couple of lamps give the room a beautiful half-light. The grandfather clock isn’t ticking. It has stopped at 3.47 a.m.

Katy is fast asleep on the sofa, with blankets over her. Silvia is sitting at the piano. She plays the second Crooked Dance by Erik Satie. She has placed a huge red open umbrella over her.

The door on to the courtyard is wide open. It is pitch black outside. Nothing much is visible, but there’s something odd about the image of darkness through the door. Is it moving? It’s as if the whole house is falling through space.

Silvia plays hauntingly – her face contorting as we saw it contort before, as if she is possessed by something very strange.

Drops of water are starting to fall in the room. A leak? No, it’s more like a light drizzle, but is that really rain?

Suddenly, a wolf walks in, through the open courtyard door.

Slavering, thin, rabid-looking, it pads to the middle of the room, where it finds a plate of cakes and eats them ravenously.

Is Silvia aware of the wolf ? It is impossible to say. She continues to play the Crooked Dance.

Meanwhile, the wolf approaches Katy, who remains fast asleep on the sofa. The wolf sniffs her stomach, her bum, her crotch, her face . . .

Finally, the wolf turns, and leaps on top of a low table, where it has a clear view of Silvia, who continues to play the piano, her eyes locked onto the wolf ’s eyes. Now rain is falling in a steady drizzle into the room.

As soon as Silvia reaches the final notes of the Crooked Dance, the wolf leaves briskly through the courtyard door. The rain stops. It is over.

Silvia sits for a while in a state of immense shock. That was a huge life-changing experience for her.

Katy starts to wake up, clearly wondering where she is. She sees Silvia, collects herself . . .

Katy Silvia!

Silvia turns her strange intense gaze on Katy.

Silvia You missed your train.

Katy Yes, Denis put us in the barn.

Silvia And somehow you woke up here.

Katy Yes. Sorry! Yeah – so Nick sort of tried it on. I already had the keys. We were getting the morning train – before you wake up, Denis said. I just thought. Sorry, really embarrassing.

Silvia I practise at night.

Katy Right. I didn’t know.

Silvia The front door is open. You know, we’ve had wolves in the courtyard before.

She closes the courtyard door.

Katy Denis said. Was that me?

Silvia Next time you break into my house, don’t leave the door wide open.

Katy Earlier. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot.

She starts to collect her things.

Silvia What’s the time?

Katy Three forty-seven.

Silvia I have some very good old whisky. Would you care for a drop?

Katy You’re offering me a drink?

Silvia I think I’m done with practice tonight.

Katy OK.

Silvia has fetched a dusty-looking bottle.

Silvia An admirer gave me this years ago. Barrels over three hundred years old. Must have set him back twenty grand – obscene.

Katy I mean, I’d be just as happy with beer or wine. You don’t have to impress me. I am ultimately from Coventry.

Silvia I won’t drink alone, not tonight.

She opens the bottle, pours, and hands Katy a glass. She contemplates Katy – a full, unashamed stare. Katy has never felt so thoroughly looked at. That’s the look Silvia must have given Nick earlier.

Katy Hi.

Silvia No need to look so scared.

I lost my temper earlier – I’m sorry. I know your editor probably piles on the pressure for you to ask these silly questions, but I’ve made it clear how insulting I find it. I couldn’t have been clearer.

And really I don’t see why, after everything I’ve achieved, the most important thing about me should be the men I’ve slept with. For God’s sake, Zelezny died over forty years ago.

I contacted the Weekend Magazine because I thought that way it’d be a serious interview. And then here you were – a very modern sort of journalist. Probably a little intro about my interior décor, before you move on to the inevitable body shaming.

Katy That’s unfair. Look, I’m paid to intrude. It’s the job.

Silvia Katy, you can’t comprehend me. So why bother trying?

Beat. Silvia is staring at Katy.

Katy That piece you were playing? I could hear it in my dream. I know that piece. I’m sure I do.

Silvia The second Crooked Dance.

Katy Which you played at your farewell concert.

Silvia The Crooked Dances were written in winter 1897. Debussy and Ravel were now international stars. The Gymnopédies were old news.

By now, people regarded Satie less as a composer and more as a clown. Obsessed with necromancy, he’d even tried to start his own church. The joke had gone too far.

He fixated on Suzanne Valadon, who was gone forever.

So he drinks alone at the same table in the same cabaret bar. Failure is like an avalanche overtaking him. He can’t find his rent. The landlord takes pity – finds him a box room with barely room for a single bed. And no heater.

It is so cold that winter, Erik sleeps fully dressed, with the rest of his clothes piled up on top of him. He is starving, freezing, inconsolably heartbroken. Even music has abandoned him. For here is Erik’s most shameful secret – he hasn’t composed a note for two years.

Katy So. . . what happens then?

Silvia Then he writes the Crooked Dances.

Satie was obsessed by the mysteries of time. For years, his scores had abandoned bar signs, in fact any...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• About the Royal Shakespeare Company
• New work at the RSC
• Creatives
• Love the RSC?
• The Royal Shakespeare Company
• Cast
• Creatives
• Introduction
• Attention
• Characters
• Contents
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• eCopyright