Duologues for All Accents and Ages

Eamonn Jones, Jean Marlow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781135870171
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

This is a volume of scenes for two characters, hence duologues. The authors have selected meaty scenes from major plays, as well as from a few wonderful ones not well known. Here Jack and Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, Yvan and Marc in Art, Cecile and the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Mozart and Constanze in Amadeus, as well as two-character scenes from The Killing of Sister George, Kindertransport, The Crucible, and dozens of other works. Duologues provide a concentrated way of practicing skills and encourage actors to listen and respond. Helpful advice is given in the book by contributors such as Tom Stoppard, April De Angelis and Don Taylor.

The Duologues

GUY BENNETT	TOMMY JUDD
17	17

Another Country
Julian Mitchell

First produced at the Greenwich Theatre in 1981 and then transferred to the Queens Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.

The play is set in an English public school in the early Thirties, where future leaders of the ruling class are being prepared for their entry into the Establishment. In this environment the two main characters, Guy Bennett, coming to terms with his homosexuality, and Tommy Judd, a committed Marxist, are very much ‘outsiders’.

This scene is set in the library at night. Judd, dressed in pyjamas, is reading by a shaded light. There is a scrabbling sound and Bennett, dressed in tails and a fancy waistcoat, appears at the window, having climbed up the drainpipe.

Published by Amber Lane Press, Oxford

Act One, Scene Four

BENNETT [off, in a loud whisper] Hell!
[Judd waits a moment, then pounces as Bennett is half in and half out of the window.]

JUDD [imitating Fowler, in a low whisper] All right, Bennett! I’ve got you this time!
[For a moment Bennett thinks it really is Fowler. Then he relaxes and hauls himself in. He is wearing tails, fancy waistcoat and buttonhole, just like a member of Twenty Two.]

BENNETT God, I thought you were Fowler!

JUDD Ssh! What on earth are you doing?

BENNETT Celebrating!

JUDD But I thought you didn’t have to be back till tomorrow morning.

BENNETT [brushing himself down] That drainpipe’s a bloody disgrace. Someone should have a word with Farcical.

JUDD Ssh!

BENNETT Tommy – may I call you Tommy, Tommy?

JUDD If you want.

BENNETT Tommy – I’m in love.

JUDD That’s not exactly news.

BENNETT I don’t mean ‘in love’, I mean in love.

JUDD You’re drunk.

BENNETT It’s like being drunk. Only instead of things going round and round, they’re perfectly, beautifully still. And not blurred – sharp – clear – brighter colours than you’ve ever seen. It’s – it’s unbelievable.

JUDD The wedding was a success, then.

BENNETT It wasn’t a wedding. More – an engagement party.

JUDD What? But—

BENNETT Oh, you mean the wedding! That was ghastly. Mother blubbed. And Arthur – he wants me to call him Arthur, can you believe it?

JUDD Perhaps it’s his name.

BENNETT I told her – you can call him anything you like, he’s your husband, I shall call him Colonel, and that’s that.

JUDD Ssh!

BENNETT Leaving me to rot in this jail of a school, while she flaunts herself up and down the Riviera with that – that—

JUDD Ssh!

BENNETT Sorry, but – I mean, really! It’s so undignified, people that age going off to Cap Ferrat. They should creep down to Cromer, and think themselves lucky. Tweeds and plus-fours and out on the links all day – that’s what they should be doing. I told them so. Made mother blub again.

JUDD Cad!

BENNETT But they’re trying to get rid of me, Tommy! They’ve got a world tour all set up – Cape Town, Singapore, Hong Kong – Australia! I ask you!

JUDD Really!

BENNETT It’s the Martineau business. They fear for my moral character.

JUDD Bit late for that, isn’t it?

BENNETT You must be mad, I said. I’m not leaving now. School’s just getting to the good bit.

JUDD I didn’t know there was a good bit.

BENNETT Oh, well, for you there isn’t. You’re determined not to have one. But for sensible people – me – I’m going to dress like this every day next term, Tommy.

JUDD [dry] You’ll have to be careful not to get any more food on the waistcoat, then. It’s grubby already.

BENNETT Damn the waistcoat. I’ve been waiting for this ever since my first day at prepper.

JUDD How pathetic.

BENNETT Nothing’ll be as good again till I’m Ambassador in Paris.

JUDD Childish.

BENNETT Life is ladders. That’s all. Prepper to here. First form to sixth. Second assistant junior Under-secretary to Ambassador in Paris. Ladders and love. It’s so wonderful being in love.

JUDD So you said.

BENNETT I took James to dinner at the ‘Fox and Hounds’.

JUDD [baffled] Who’s James?

BENNETT Harcourt. His name’s James. [He has difficulty saying it.] His name is James.

JUDD You’re mad!

BENNETT We arranged it all yesterday. If my mother was marrying Arthur, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t have dinner with James. He told his House Man his uncle was coming down, [sudden thought] I am a fool. I should have booked a room.

JUDD [thinking it’s just another story] Why not the bridal suite?

BENNETT [serious] No. No, that would have spoiled it. And anyway, he had to be in by nine-thirty. We wouldn’t have had time.

JUDD My God! You really did go!

BENNETT You know, till now, it’s all just been a game. Manoeuvring for glances, meeting accidentally-on-purpose. It was simply relieving the boredom. But now—

JUDD You’ll be sunkered.

BENNETT No, no.

JUDD Masters drink at the ‘Fox and Hounds’ [Bennett shrugs.] Bennett, you are mad.

BENNETT [picking up the binoculars] Do call me Guy. It’s so stupid, surnames. Have you ever really been in love?

JUDD No.

BENNETT It’s—[Pause.] I’ve been walking about. Thinking. What time is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Duologues for Two Men
• Duologues for Two Women
• Duologues for One Man and One Woman
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• In Your Own Time
• Advice on Some of the Selections
• The Duologues
• Copyright Holders