Hare Gethsemane

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30137-9
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Nothing is more important to a modern political party than fund-raising. But the values of the donors can't always coincide with the professed beliefs of the party. And family scandal within the cabinet has the potential to throw both the money-raisers and the money-spenders into chaos. This richly imagined ensemble play about British public life looks at the way business, media and politics are now intertwined to nobody's advantage, as, in an unforgiving world, one character after another passes through Gethsemane. Gethsemane, David Hare's fourteenth original play for the National Theatre, London, premiered in November 2008.

David Hare has written over thirty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy's View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn, The Moderate Soprano, I'm Not Running and Beat the Devil. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, the Worricker Trilogy, Collateral and Roadkill. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hare, David

Leseproben

TWO

Frank You won’t meet him for long. You know he can’t see you for long.

Mike I didn’t expect to meet him for long. I wasn’t expecting to meet him at all.

Frank What do you know about pop music?

Mike Honestly?

Frank Yes.

Mike I know very little.

Frank That’s fine.

Mike Except that it’s not called pop, any more, is it?

Otto Good morning. You’re Mike Drysdale.

Mike You’re Otto Fallon.

Otto That’s right. Ask me anything you like.

Mike I ask you?

Otto By all means.

Mike I was expecting you to ask me.

Otto Oh, please!

First I want to apologise for bringing you in at this hour.

Mike It’s all right. I’m an early riser.

Otto Something sad about us, isn’t there? The early morning people. What time is it?

Frank Just gone seven.

Otto We’re rather sad, aren’t we? How wonderful it would be to lie in bed till ten, eating toast. Toast with butter. That would be stylish. But in us there’s a sort of admission, desperate isn’t it? If we don’t get up at the crack, we won’t get up at all.

Mike I’ve always done it.

Otto What?

Mike Got up early.

Otto Jolly boating weather.

Mike I’m sorry?

Otto We’ve never had anyone from university before, have we, Frank? Let alone Oxford.

Mike Cambridge.

Otto What a interesting life you must have led.

Mike Not at all. No. No, actually it’s been dullish. I briefly in the police …

Otto Frank mentioned that. What motivated you? Why to be a policeman?

Mike I don’t know. There was graduate entrance. And I don’t mean to sound highfalutin, but perhaps a sense of injustice.

Otto A sense of injustice. Excellent. We like that. Why should people just be defined by their function? No, no. Let them have feelings, let them have thoughts.

Mike Well, whatever. I was uncomfortable in the police. Since then I’ve been working in the Home Office.

Otto Yes.

Frank and I didn’t go to university, did we, Frank?

Frank No.

Otto No such luck. What is it I always say?

Frank You’re looking at me.

Otto Why not? Mr Drysdale hasn’t heard it.

Frank That doesn’t mean I have to repeat it. Is that what I’m here for? To repeat things you can’t be bothered to say?

Otto always says he was educated in the university of life.

Otto There! Have you ever heard that expression before?

Mike Well, as a matter of fact …

Otto I know, it’s wonderful, isn’t it? The school of rough knocks. So. How come the Home Office?

Mike Oh well, actually, I went in as a temp, a temporary job, and I rose.

Otto You rose at speed?

Mike The standard isn’t high.

Otto That’s what they say.

Mike I joined one week because I could work a computer, next week I was answering the minister’s mail.

Otto Yes. Interesting.

We ourselves are in the music business. Popular music. In recent years the company’s brief has expanded. We’ve taken on duties of a political nature. Of a broad political nature.

Mike What duties?

You rang last night, you said it was urgent.

Otto It is urgent.

Mike Forgive me, I’d barely even heard of you.

Otto That’s fine. Fewer people have heard of me the better. These days it’s smart to be anonymous, don’t you think? There’s nothing more vulgar than being famous. And glamour isn’t even glamorous any more. Take it from me.

Mike Is that the world you move in?

Otto Rich, yes. Famous, yes. Fascinating, I don’t think so.

I was going to ask: do you know anything about music?

Mike Not much.

Otto Don’t worry, it’s not a disqualification.

Mike My wife knows more. She’s working as a busker, in fact.

Otto A busker?

Mike Just at the moment. At Barons Court. Again, it’s a temporary thing.

Otto It’s not a lifelong thing?

Mike No. Temporary.

Otto And is she doing well, your wife?

Mike Well, there’s a structure to busking.

Otto There’s a structure to everything.

Mike Yes. But in particular it depends on the pitch. I don’t mean the pitch of the music …

Frank Obviously.

Mike Pitch meaning the place where you play.

Frank We knew that’s what you meant. Clearly. We’re not idiots.

Otto There’s a hierarchy?

Mike Yes.

Otto And is there violence?

Mike I don’t know. I really don’t know. There may be violence. Elsewhere. At other stations. But Lori’s been very careful.

Otto Choosing where to play?

Mike That’s it.

Otto Not stealing spots that belong to other people?

Mike Well, of course Lori doesn’t do that.

Otto And you’re at peace with it, are you? Your wife being out? Being out at night?

Mike She doesn’t play nights.

Otto You wouldn’t let her?

Mike It’s up to her.

Otto Be clear: there’s not a breath of criticism.

Mike I didn’t take it as criticism.

Otto Don’t mistake me: I was a hairdresser, I’m all for women’s liberation. The more liberated the better. I spent many years listening to women’s conversation. Because that’s how I started out. In Hendon. I was a hairdresser in Hendon. Did you know that?

Mike I read it.

Otto Does it surprise you?

Mike No, because I read it.

Otto Listen to women for any length of time, listen to what they say, especially to each other, and your respect for them will grow. I cut hair for five years and at the end my respect was boundless. Time spent listening to women is never wasted. Compare it with men’s conversation.

Frank Footling.

Otto Yeah. Women have their priorities right.

I don’t know you, Mike. I don’t know your wife. Out evenings. Playing on the Tube. If you’re at peace with that. But my wife’s at home, preparing for Sunday lunch.

In a meritocracy the man who’s full of merit ought to be the man who rises. Why else call it a meritocracy? And if it’s not a meritocracy, what is it?

Mike Honestly, I do OK. I’m not complaining.

Otto No. But you’re struggling to pay the mortgage. Children?

Mike No.

Frank Anyone want coffee?

Mike Thank you.

Just so you understand: my wife did have a job, but she left. Voluntarily.

Otto What sort of job?

Mike She was a teacher. She taught. That’s what she did. For the moment, busking’s a choice.

Otto It’s your wife’s choice?

Mike Forgive me, you have a way of saying ‘your wife’.

Otto Do I?

Mike As if a woman were some sort of possession.

All right, fair enough, sufficient to say – I don’t know why I’m even saying this: the fact is, I admit it, we got in over our heads.

Otto Buying a house?

Mike Yes. Buying a house in London. Then my wife walked out of her job.

Otto Yes. Life’s fun, isn’t it? Until it isn’t. Is that how it was?

Mike Just tell me, so I understand. Tell me what I’m doing here.

Otto It’s simple. I’m saying, look at you, Mike. I know...