Three Kingdoms

Simon Stephens

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781408172964
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Three Kingdoms is a blackly entertaining and unsettling detective story cum parable about the devil in us all, international human trafficking and the changing state of Europe.
As the severed human head of an Estonian woman is found in a river in Hammersmith, two British detectives set off in search of her origins in Europe and how she came to be found dead. Accompanied by a mephistophelian German detective acting as their guide, they gradually sink deeper and deeper into the world of prostitution and international human trafficking. Fighting to cross international borders and language barriers, they enter a nightmarish world that will change one of them forever. Three Kingdoms tells the stories of trafficked women, the gangs and the police forces across Europe that attempt to control them.
This dark new thriller by Simon Stephens, set across three countries, explores an international business where the goods are not products, but people. Questioning and undermining not just tenets about the nature of Europe with its old and new borders, Three Kingdoms also explodes moral certainties. With good and evil presented not as polarised forces but as disturbingly shifting, overlapping and contradictory, the play provocatively unbalances convictions of truth, ethical codes, violence and justice.
This edition also includes a preface with contributions from playwright Simon Stephens, German director Sebastian Nuebling and Estonian dramaturg Eero Epner, discussing this uniquely collaborative and tri-lingual project.

Part One: London

You walk down the street in this city and you’ve got

Turkish gangsters running your corner shops. Paki

dickless wonders doing your dental work. Coons

running your local councils and white men driving

taxis. You get your moral compass from pop stars.

You get your theology from goalkeepers.

Wenn man in dieser Stadt auf die Straße geht, gehört

jeder Kramladen einem türkischen Gangster. Die

Zähne behandelt einem irgendein Paki-Eunuch. Die

Nigger sitzen im Stadtrat, und die Weißen fahren

Taxi. Moralische Orientierung kriegt ihr von

Popstars. Und von Torhütern Theologie.

Sa käid mööda linna ringi ja näed, et nurgapealset

poodi peavad türgi gängsterid. Pakistani ilma türata

imeloomad parandavad teil siin hambaid. Mustad

töötavad kohalikes omavalitsuses ja valged mehed

sõidavad taksot. Oma moraalse orientiiri saate

popstaaridelt. Oma teoloogia väravavahtidelt.

One

Detective Inspector Charlie Lee, Detective Sergeant Ignatius Stone and Tommy White. An interview room in the Uxbridge Road branch of Hammersmith and Fulham Police Station.

Some time.

Charlie What have you done to your hand, Tommy?

Tommy I don’t want to talk about it.

Charlie No?

Tommy If you don’t mind.

Charlie I don’t blame you.

Tommy Thank you.

The men look at Tommy. Some time.

Ignatius What do you want to talk about, Tommy?

Tommy I don’t know what I’m doing here.

Ignatius Is that what you want to talk about?

Tommy I’d like to know what I’m doing here, please.

Charlie We’ve got all day for that. Why don’t you tell us about your hand first, Tommy?

Tommy No, thank you.

Ignatius Did you bandage it yourself?

Charlie ’Cause I don’t think you’ve done a very good job on it, have you, Tommy?

Ignatius Not easy bandaging your own hand. You have to use your teeth very skilfully Tommy, don’t you?

Tommy looks at them. He says nothing.

Charlie Is that a ‘no comment’? Should I take that as a refusal to comment?

Well?

Ignatius Do you like football, Tommy?

Would you like to chat about football, Tommy? Maybe?

What about music? Do you want to talk about music?

Charlie Tommy, I promise you we are getting to the business of what in the name of jiminy you’re doing here, but first do you want to have a little bit of a chatter about music? Just to warm you up?

I like music, me.

Ignatius Me too. I love it.

Charlie Sometimes we have a little song together we like music so much.

Tommy Is he your boss? Are you his boss? Not much of a boss, is he? More like a clown than a boss.

Ignatius What music do you like, Tommy?

Tommy, what music do you like?

Tommy, what music do you like?

Tommy I quite like The Beatles.

Ignatius and Charlie share their enjoyment of his response with one another.

Ignatius The Beatles?

Charlie Do you?

Tommy Yeah.

Charlie Aren’t you a bit young for The Beatles, Tommy?

Tommy That doesn’t matter.

Ignatius I would say you are. I would say you’re far too young to like The Beatles. I would say your mum’s too young to like The Beatles, Tommy. Crikey.

Tommy It doesn’t matter.

Ignatius No?

Charlie I hate the flipping Beatles.

Tommy They wrote good songs.

Ignatius Do you think?

Charlie I think they wrote poor songs.

Ignatius What’s your favourite Beatles song, Tommy?

Tommy ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’.

Charlie Is it?

Ignatius Ha.

Charlie That’s really poor, that song. I flipping hate it. It gets right on my nerves.

The Beatles!

A pause. Charlie and Ignatius share a moment. Smile. Then look back to Tommy.

Charlie So. Tommy. At 6.55 this morning you, Thomas Jason White, were arrested in your home at Flat 5c of Durban House on the White City Housing Estate in London, W12. Is that right?

Tommy nods.

Ignatius For the tape, the subject nods.

Charlie The arresting officers were Sergeant Benson and Sergeant Miller from Hammersmith and Fulham. You were taken here to the Shepherd’s Bush Police Station on Uxbridge Road. Is that right?

Tommy nods.

Ignatius For the tape, the subject nods.

Charlie The Custody Sergeant, Sergeant Rashid recorded your arrival at 7.23 this morning.

Tommy He’s fucking lovely.

A beat. The men look at him.

Ignatius Sorry, Tommy?

Tommy Sergeant Rashid. Normally desk sergeants are grumpy bastards, he was dead nice.

Charlie Good.

Ignatius That’s good to hear. That’s warming actually, Tommy, that level of respect. It’s buoying. I will be sure to pass on your compliments, Tommy. Thank you for that.

Charlie And it was he who took your fingerprints?

Tommy Yes.

Charlie He took your photograph?

Tommy nods.

Ignatius For the tape, the subject nods.

Charlie And did he take a swab test from inside your mouth?

Tommy nods.

Ignatius For the tape, the subject nods.

Charlie Were you given the opportunity to make any phone calls?

Tommy I called my mum.

Charlie Good thing to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Dedication
• Premiere Cast Information
• Characters
• Lyric Hammersmith Poster
• Part One: London
• Munich Kammerspiele Poster
• Part Two: Hamburg
• Teater NO99 Poster
• Part Three: Tallinn
• Epilogue: London
• By the Same Author
• About the Author
• eCopyright