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- 128 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Oil (NHB Modern Plays)
Book details
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About This Book
The Bronze Age. The Iron Age. The Age of Oil.
The Stone Age didn't end for want of stones. What do you do when you know it's going to run out? Oil follows the lives of one woman and her daughter in an epic, hurtling crash of empire, history and family.
Ella Hickson's explosive new play drills deep into the world's relationship with this finite resource.
Oil premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2016.
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PART ONE
Farm, Cornwall ā 1889
The Singer Family Farm: a remote smallholding in the West Country countryside.
Late afternoon, winter; it is bitingly cold, the snow is thick ā the air is purple-grey.
A white sun is low in the sky. JOSS, twenty-five ā physical, bulky ā is splitting logs with a long-axe. MAY, twenty ā hardy, slim, muscular and three months pregnant. MAY is frozen, dirty and hungry. MAY watches JOSS. MAY waits for JOSS to take a break so she can speak. JOSS splits a log. JOSS splits a log. JOSS splits a log. JOSS doesnāt take a break.
MAY. Joss?
JOSS. Hm?
ā
MAY. Joss?
JOSS keeps splitting logs.
ā
Joss? Joss? Joss? Joss?
JOSS raises the axe to strike again, as he does so MAY steps in towards it; the axe comes down centimetres from her face and lodges in the block.
MAY doesnāt flinch.
Pause.
Itās not because Iām weak.
ā
JOSS crumples.
JOSS. Godās sake.
ā
MAY. Sunās going down. (Beat.) Been up to my elbows in freeze since noon.
JOSS. Why?
MAY. Drinking troughās frozen; inches thick ā had to chip at it.
JOSS. You get āem all done?
MAY. Babyās making me tired; hungry as hell. Joss?
JOSS. You get āem done?
MAY. All but two.
JOSS. They need doing or animals canāt drink.
MAY. Canāt feel my fingers.
JOSS. We canāt have you in bed, not yet.
MAY. I canāt feel my fingers.
JOSS. Rub āem together.
ā
MAY. Put your arms around me.
JOSS. If you get warm youāll be colder than you started five minutes after.
MAY. Then keep your arms around me.
JOSS. If I stop itāll be hell getting goinā again.
MAY. Please.
JOSS. Donāt make it seem cruel, May ā itās work.
JOSS keeps splitting logs.
ā
MAY. Iāll fetch some bread and cheese from the pantry, few logs and we can set up in here, I can sit with you whilst you work, Iāll bring the chicken in for plucking and we can sit warm together.
MA SINGER has entered unseen ā tall, thin and beaky.
MA SINGER. Not enough for all five up there to be making picnics down here for two, Joss.
JOSS. Mother.
MA SINGER. Thought you were clearing the troughs, May ā far as I could see two still frozen over.
MAY. Ice was too thick.
MA SINGER. Half a dozen sheep gaspinā.
Pause.
MAY. I was just coming by to see ifā¦ Joss had wood for me.
ā
MA SINGER. Find you in these stables lot more than I find you working.
MAY. I like the stables.
MA SINGER. Must be a natural instinct of sorts.
MAY. Dare say.
ā
JOSS. Well now. May, go get warm up in the house and Iāll do those troughs for you when Iām through here.
MAY. No, no ā theyāll be done. Then weāll have our picnic, Joss ā just us.
MAY kisses JOSSās cheek.
MAY turns to leave.
MA SINGER. May?
MAY stops and turns back.
Why is it that you think you should be warm when the sun aināt shining?
ā
MAY exits.
JOSS turns away and starts chopping logs again.
MAY sees him and turns to walk up to the house.
The kitchen. Early evening. Winter.
Candles. Black walls.
FANNY uses washing board and tub and scrubs vigorously at underclothes.
MAY tugs and plucks at a slightly rotten chicken.
MA SINGER is loading the range with more coal.
ANNE is hefting all the weight she has into kneading dough.
MAY. Feathers ripping out more flesh than they should.
MA SINGER. Itās fine.
MAY. Doesnāt smell right.
MA SINGER. Smells fine.
MAY. Itās.
FANNY. Not going to rot in this freeze, is it?
MA SINGER. Exactly.
ANNE holds up the dough.
MA SINGER comes round ā takes a piece of the dough ā smooths it out in front of the candle ā the light shines through it and shows that there are still lumps.
Needs to look like parchment ā not porridge. You see?
ANNE. Quicker to make parchment, I reckon. Hardly feel my arms.
MA SINGER. Youāre doing a good job.
FANNY. Range is smeeching; smokeās getting to these shirts.
MA SINGER. Do āem outside.
MAY. Itās pitch black.
MA SINGER. Need to get them done, donāt we? Canāt send those boys out in this weather with damp shirts.
MAY. Itās not right, this chicken.
MA SINGER. Will you stop whining? Do these potatoes; I canāt get my hands round them.
MAY picks up the potatoes and reaches for a knife. MA SINGER starts in with the washing.
Brush āem donāt cut āem not enough as there is ā weāll lose half to the pigs you go cutting them and clean all that up first ā you never do a job properly you, do you?
ANNE squeals.
What you done, love?
ANNE. Piece a glass, I think. Pass that candle.
MAY reaches for the candle to come and look.
MA SINGER. You got work to do.
MA SINGER takes the candle off MAY.
MAY. Bind it or youāll bleed into the bread.
ANNE. It hurts.
MAY. Find the glass ānā all.
MA SINGER....
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Original Production
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Characters
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four
- Part Five
- About the Author
- Copyright and Performing Rights Information