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- 96 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Mongrel Island
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About This Book
Marie is losing herself in her grey office existence, trapped by endless piles of paperwork and the same people saying the same things every single day. But as she is forced to work later and later into the night, she discovers a deeply strange twilight world where a new possibility for rescuing her sanity is illuminated by the fluorescent office lights. Commissioned by Soho Theatre and written by up-and-coming writer Ed Harris, Mongrel Island explores the mind and memory, offering a perspective of how the workplace can strip away our humanity. Combining madcap, surreal humour with an indictment of the corporate world's subjugation of individualism, Mongrel Island is a bittersweet, touching and darkly humourous play.
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Information
Scene One
The sodium office lights crackle on.
Daytime. Office hours. The office is uninspiring to the point of being maddening. One window. Three desks. One door, hall; and one door, Honeyâs office/partitioned area, with desk. Only Joe and Elvis are working at their desks; time has moved very slowly for them, for a very long time. There are processing carersâ timesheets. This involves opening a seemingly endless load of envelopes, taking out the duplicate sheets, separating them, signing one off, filing separately, and logging the information on to an online system. Marie enters. They look up. She goes to her seat. They get back to their work. Tap tap tap.
Marie Theyâve run out of stuff in the thing.
Only Joe glances up, and then gets back to his work.
Only Joe What you say?
Marie I donât think I said anything, did I? (She goes to desk, sits. Stares at workload. Marie becomes distracted.) Did I? (Stares blankly.) Oh. Stuff. In the thing. Theyâve run out.
Only Joe (Glances up at her.)
Tap tap tap.
Marie (Picks up timesheet. Distracted.) Yeah. Whatâs it called?
Only Joe (Sits back and watches her.)
Marie ⌠Thing. (New subject. To herself.) Tits ⌠This formâs missing one of its reference numbers.
Only Joe works.
Marie Only Joe.
Only Joe Make it up.
Marie (Pause.) I canât make it up.
Only Joe Make it up.
Marie Iâll ask Honey.
Only Joe Honey? (Pause.) Make it up. They get paid either way.
Marie Do they?
Only Joe Probably.
Tap tap tap.
Marie I canât come out of the screen.
Only Joe Hm?
Marie The screen. I canât come out of the screen.
Only Joe Marie? Iâm trying to work. I thought you went out for water?
Marie I did ⌠Thatâs what I was saying. The thingâs run out of stuff.
Only Joe The âŚ
Marie Water-coolerâs.
Only Joe Run out of âŚ
Marie ⌠What?
Only Joe Whatâs the water-cooler run out of ⌠?
Marie Water.
Only Joe Beautiful, isnât it? The language of Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Marie And someoneâs stolen my cup.
Tap tap tap. Only Joe doesnât work, he watches Marie.
Only Joe I had a really good wank over you this morning.
Marie (Routinely.) No you didnât.
Only Joe I did. It was good, actually.
Marie (Routinely.) No you didnât.
Only Joe You were disgusting.
Marie (Routinely.) No I wasnât.
Only Joe I once knew a girl who drank a little bit of her own piss every day. And when she had athleteâs foot, she pissed on her foot in the shower â and apparently it worked.
(No reaction.)
I wouldnât drink piss, personally. Would you? Would you drink piss, personally?
Marie Not personally, no.
Only Joe No. (Beat.) Elvis? Elvis. Elvis? (Pause.) Elvis? Excuse me, Elvis? Elvis?
Elvis Urr-hurr-huh.
Only Joe Would you drink piss personally, Elvis?
Marie Leave him alone.
Only Joe Iâll leave him alone when heâs dead.
Tap tap tap.
Only Joe Is it time for the un-ber-fucking-lievable?
Marie Hm?
Only Joe Is it time for the un-ber-fucking-lievable?
Marie Iâm not making it. Itâs not my turn.
Only Joe (Of Elvis.) Heâll make it. (Looks at watch.) God Iâm bored. Talk to me, Elvis. How are you? How are you, mate? Do anything last night? Watch any telly?
Elvis (Pause.) Urr-hurr-huh.
Only Joe Brilliant. (Stares at him.)
Elvis (Nervous.) Urr-hurr-huh.
Only Joe Eat any food? No? Nothing?
Elvis Why?
Only Joe Go on.
Elvis Worked on my bike.
Only Joe Course you did.
Elvis And dad made corn beef hash.
Only Joe Course he did.
Elvis But do you want to know what happened then?
Only Joe Iâm on the edge of my seat.
Elvis After we ate and after dad went up the Irishâs for a pint?
Elvis takes a calendar out of his bag and sets it up on his desk.
Marie (Of the calendar.) Sheâs very pretty.
Elvis Sheâs Crystal. She did a talk, and a demonstration of her skills, like standard block chopping and springboard chopping ⌠And it was her idea to make a calendar. Which is raising money for charity, as well as awareness of the Association. The Lumberjillsâ Association. Like Lumberjacks but theyâre women.
Marie Lumberjills. Hence the chainsaw.
Only Joe You know whatâll happen.
Elvis She signed it.
Marie Sheâs got lovely writing.
Only Joe Donât humour him. Will Honey humour him? What do you think, Elvis, or does she hate you?
Marie She doesnât hate him.
Only Joe Not âin particularâ.
Elvis There were others too, but Crystalâs nicest. (Sets up calendar on desk.) She signed it.
Tap tap tap.
Marie I had this dream last night and I was under Honeyâs desk and
Only Joe Please donât.
Marie What?
Only Joe Not dreams.
Tap tap tap.
Marie Iâm going to take me shoes off, theyâre killing.
Only Joe (Warning.) Donât even pretend.
Marie What? Iâm not.
Only Joe And face the wrath.
9.00am. Honey enters.
Honey Morning, all.
All (Mumbles of Good morning, Honey.)
Honey Good. Elvis. Please.
Elvis In front of us are envelopes that contain three duplicate copies of careworkersâ timesheets. The pink sheet, serial number between A2 and B8, are put in the service usersâ archive on the third floor â
Honey Stop. Only Joe.
Only Joe A yellow sheet with a serial number between C4 and C6 is kept for our own files, and logged on to the online system. If we find a white sheet â
Honey We must:
Marie Keep it for fourteen working days for the careworker to claim it for his or her personal records.
Only Joe After the period of fourteen days â
Honey Abigail.
Marie The white sheet, along with the yellow sheet weâve logged on to the online system are destroyed.
Honey Wait. Itâs not Abigail, is it?
Marie Itâs Marie.
Honey (Makes a note of this.) Continue.
Marie Erm. Destroy.
Honey What?
Marie Everything.
Honey Elvis.
Elvis Commitment.
Honey And.
Elvis We need commitment, not just involvement.
Honey Only Joe.
Only ...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Cast list
- Acknowledgements
- Scene One
- Scene Two
- Scene Three
- Scene Four
- Scene Five
- Scene Six
- Scene Seven
- Scene Eight
- Scene Nine
- Scene Ten
- Scene Eleven
- Scene Twelve
- Scene Thirteen
- Postscript
- Authorâs Note
- Footnote
- Imprint