All of Me

Caroline Horton

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350154483
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Hello, I thought I'd introduce myself properly. As is polite. An intimate and absurd exploration of wanting to live, wanting to die and what can happen if we sit together with the dark. Caroline reunites with director Alex Swift (Mess, How to Win Against History) to bring you the show that happens after the curtain call, when the lights have gone down but the mess remains. In this witty new monologue, Caroline Horton unlocks an ancient myth to explore living with depression in our modern world.

All of Me

A mix-tape of bad songs, each titled ‘All of Me’ plays as the audience enters.

Onstage is a scaff tower with rough wooden planks across it, there seems to be an orchid on a small shelf. Bits of clothing are strewn about. Three hessian sandbags hang on ropes. A smaller scaff structure is covered in bits of technical kit, including a couple of computer screens. There are angle-poise lamps on the main scaff tower and across the front of the stage. There is cable everywhere. Three mirror balls have been dumped on the floor downstage.

When she enters, she looks at the audience and leaves. She re-appears. This is not an apology. She wears old shorts, slippers with socks, and a ripped sequined jacket. She ambles about, and quite a lot of this is shouted.

Hello.

I’d like to apologise for what happens next.

I apologise if it doesn’t live up to your expectations of theatre or art.

I apologise for not having tried to cover up its shortcomings with skill – such as tap-dancing – I can’t dance – though at one point I did begin with tap-dancing.

There aren’t even interesting or inventive uses of technology – don’t let the computer screens and all the cable raise any expectations of that sort – they’re from a previous version of the show.

I apologise too for the heavy subject matter. I at least hope this isn’t a surprise – I did mention dying on the flyer. But I’m sorry if you didn’t get a flyer or if you have ended up in here by accident and now feel trapped in a show where the performer already seems to have gone off piste.

I actually haven’t – gone off piste. I apologise if knowing that this is planned makes you feel worse.

I apologise for not surprising you with a light show about depression and death – it’s going to remain quite a dark show about those dark things. In March I called the show’s producer and said I was sorry for not being able to work, not returning emails and refusing to engage with the world because I was once again depressed and suicidal and regularly eating my own weight in granola and cake mix. After an awkward silence – a bit like this one – he was nice about it and in that phone call I said I wanted the show to have more jokes – that as I was going to be doing it in Edinburgh for a month and then in London for another month – it’d be better for everyone if it wasn’t unrelentingly bleak. It was a genuine desire (and he seemed relieved) but I’d like to apologise because it hasn’t materialised – there aren’t more jokes.

I apologise that despite trying for three and a half years to make something formally groundbreaking that would authentically capture my experience of what some people call ‘mental illness’, I have in fact ended up telling a story – with a beginning and a middle and an end – and it’s not even a new story – I have rehashed a myth and then made it fit into a 70-minute Edinburgh slot.

She turns her back and rests her head on the tower.

I apologise for not being at my best – for not offering you my best self or even a professional façade. This show is the way it is because I am tired – in lots of ways – mostly of tidying myself up – and of hiding stuff – for example, the frequent sensation of not wanting to be alive or of being too scared to get up in the mornings slash afternoons – but more of that later.

Clearly today I’ve succeeded in getting out of bed (though this may be due to my ingrained obedience). Had things still been really bad I wouldn’t be here – onstage – and I wouldn’t be apologising. So I apologise for being neither ready for this, nor unready enough to have stayed in bed.

I am also sorry you have had to pay a lot of money to be here – if it helps at all – so have I – we are all on the same ugly cruise ship built by megalomaniac rich people telling us that art is important and we are all having a truly wonderful time.

I apologise for not doing proper marketing and obeying deadlines. I know this has made various people’s lives more difficult, mainly the people whose job it has been to sell this show. It is very resistant to being for sale.

I’m sorry too for asking the fringe brochure to cross out the show’s title. I’m also sorry that they refused. And further to that, I apologise to anyone here who thought they were getting all of me – you’re not. The title (as I have mentioned) is in fact ‘All of Me’ crossed out – but apparently crossing things out is confusing for people and press and brochures.

She triggers a loud hopeful music track then immediately stops it.

I apologise for making yet another show about me. If a different character does appear, it is probably just another version of me – don’t get your hopes up.

She takes a chair from a stack in the wings and sits.

I know some people feel concerned about this growing tendency to ‘hang dirty laundry out in public pretending that it’s art’, and they feel very clear that this activity ‘belongs in therapy and not on the stage’. I apologise if you are one of them – you’ll really hate this.

I should also apologise for again adding to the long list of fringe shows about depression slash eating disorders slash other mental illnesses. Maybe the way to stop every other show being about mental illness would be to un-fuck the world?

I’m sorry for making a show from whose material I have no healthy distance – none. I know this has caused various people a lot of worry – I have found it interesting. Though I apologise if I do cry or briefly leave the stage – I won’t be acting – I cannot cry on demand (another skill I won’t be offering) – I’ll just be sorti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Creative Team
• Foreword
• All of Me
• Methuen Drama Classical Greek Dramatists
• Methuen Drama Contemporary Dramatists
• Methuen Drama Modern Plays
• Methuen Drama Student Editions
• Methuen Drama World Classics
• eCopyright