Now This Is Not The End (NHB Modern Plays)

Rose Lewenstein

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781780016207
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

How important is it to keep memories alive and pass down the tales of our ancestors? Six decades after her grandmother fled Germany, Rosie is making Berlin her new home. As she looks to the future, the secrets of her family's past begin to unravel...

Set in London and Berlin, Rose Lewenstein's poignant play explores the meaning of legacy, identity and our sense of belonging, through the eyes of three generations of women.

Now This Is Not The End premiered at the Arcola Theatre, London, in 2015.

One

2014

Darkness. An answerphone beep.

EVA (voice-over). Rosie?

Rosie are you there?

Rosie I can’t remember when it’s your birthday. Is it soon? What would you like? Will you buy yourself something from me? Buy yourself something from me and I’ll write you a cheque when I see you.

Rosie?

When will I see you?

I want to know what it is you would like for your birthday. Is it Easter soon or Christmas?

No, it’s Easter. There’s a man who comes to dig up the flowers. I told him to leave them alone but he said he’s helping them or something. I told him it’s too late. They’ll all be dead in ten years.

Is it Easter soon or Christmas? What would you like? Will you buy yourself something from me and I’ll write you a cheque?

Well. Why shouldn’t I have Christmas if I want to.

Click as the phone hangs up.

Silence.

Lights up on a loft apartment in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Messy but minimalist.

ROSIE and SEBASTIAN stand either side of an open suitcase. ROSIE is packing throughout.

ROSIE. I don’t know.

SEBASTIAN. Gut feeling though.

ROSIE. Is that I don’t know.

SEBASTIAN. Guts don’t say things like ‘don’t know’.

ROSIE. Mine does.

SEBASTIAN. You must have a sense. A feeling. One way or the other.

ROSIE. It isn’t something I can pin down.

SEBASTIAN. Because you say you’re going home but

ROSIE. Yes, home, London.

SEBASTIAN. and the reason I’m asking is because

ROSIE. What else am I supposed to say?

SEBASTIAN. well in German the word holds a different meaning.

ROSIE. I know what it means.

SEBASTIAN. It’s untranslatable.

ROSIE. It’s patriotic.

SEBASTIAN. No, more than that. Something much deeper. A deep visceral connection.

ROSIE. …

Well I don’t have it.

SEBASTIAN. Everyone has it.

ROSIE. I don’t feel it.

SEBASTIAN. It’s what makes us people.

ROSIE. Then maybe I’m not a person.

SEBASTIAN. Will you stop that.

ROSIE. I told Mum and Paul I’d be packed. I told them there’d be Kaffee und Kuchen.

SEBASTIAN. Will you stop that and listen.

ROSIE. And you know what my mother is like, I mean for fuck’s sake she can hardly make a cup of tea without putting it on her to-do list.

SEBASTIAN. You’re not listening to me.

ROSIE. Their whole trip has been organised around me flying back with them tomorrow.

SEBASTIAN. Not even engaging with what I’m

ROSIE. Breakfast at the top of the Reichstag, then coffee and cake, then a taxi to the airport.

The packing becomes more urgent.

SEBASTIAN. Rosie.

ROSIE. A taxi to the airport to catch a plane to take us home.

SEBASTIAN. Rosie no one is making you leave, okay? No one is forcing you, in fact it’s the opposite.

And I wouldn’t ask, I wouldn’t even bring it up if I thought for one minute that you going back to London was what you really wanted, what you really felt in your heart and in your gut and will you LEAVE THE FUCKING SUITCASE ALONE.

ROSIE stops.

ROSIE. Please, Sebastian. Don’t make this any harder.

SEBASTIAN. I’m only asking.

ROSIE. You’re asking me abstract questions.

SEBASTIAN. I’m just trying to work out

ROSIE. Abstract questions about the meanings of words.

SEBASTIAN. I’m trying to work out what you want, because phone calls and emails and Skype sex

ROSIE. Skype sex?

SEBASTIAN. well that’s not what I want.

ROSIE. I don’t want Skype sex either.

SEBASTIAN. But that’s the point, there won’t be any sex, there won’t be any physical contact at all

and I’m not saying that sex is the important thing here because it’s not, I mean it is a point, but it’s not the point

What I’m saying, what I am saying is that I

ROSIE. Don’t.

SEBASTIAN. Okay.

But I want you to stay.

Here. With me.

ROSIE. …

SEBASTIAN. You have a choice.

ROSIE. I know.

SEBASTIAN. ‘But.’

ROSIE. But this was always the plan.

SEBASTIAN. But you have options.

ROSIE. This was always going to happen.

SEBASTIAN. You could do your final year here, that’s an option.

ROSIE. It’s not as simple as that. I need to focus.

SEBASTIAN. What, you can’t focus here?

ROSIE. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do if I want to get a two-one.

SEBASTIAN. Right.

ROSIE. And I know it’s hard. Fuck it’s really fucking hard...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Acknowledgements
• Characters
• Now This Is Not The End
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information