Lomas The House Party

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78850-810-0
Verlag: Nick Hern Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 112 Seiten

Reihe: NHB Modern Plays

A wild party. A friendship. A cherished pet. And a night that changes everything. It's Julie's eighteenth birthday, and she's throwing a party in her father's extravagant townhouse. Her boyfriend has just dumped her and her long-suffering best friend Christine is trying to pick up the pieces. As the revellers pile into the booze, down in the kitchen Christine and her boyfriend Jon - son of Julie's cleaner - clear up and dare to dream of the future. But as the volume goes up and the shots go down, Julie concocts a twisted cocktail of privilege, desire and destruction. Laura Lomas's play The House Party spins Strindberg's classic play Miss Julie into intense, fizzing life for today's generation. It was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2024, co-produced with Headlong in association with Frantic Assembly, and directed by Holly Race Roughan.

Laura Lomas is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: The House Party after August Strindberg's Miss Julie (Chichester Festival Theatre / Headlong / Frantic Assembly, 2024); Metamorphoses, co-written with Sami Ibrahim and Sabrina Mahfouz, after Ovid (Shakespeare's Globe, 2021); Chaos (National Theatre Connections); The Blue Road (Dundee Rep, Derby Theatre, Royal & Derngate and Theatre Royal Plymouth youth companies); Joanne (Clean Break & Soho Theatre); Bird (Root Theatre and Echo); Blister (Paines Pough/Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama); Open Heart Surgery (Theatre Uncut); Come to Where I'm From (Paines Plough); Some Machine (Paines Plough/Rose Bruford); The Island (Nottingham Playhouse/Det Norske Oslo); Us Like Gods (Hampstead, Heat and Light); Gypsy Girl (Paines Plough Later at Soho) and Wasteland (New Perspectives/Derby Theatre; shortlisted for the Brian Way Award). Radio plays include My Boy (BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play; Bronze SONY Award for best radio drama) and Lucy Island (BBC Radio 3). Her screen work includes Rough Skin (Touchpaper/Channel 4; shortlisted for Best British Short at British Independent Film Awards and Raindance Film Festival). She has also written two episodes of Glue (E4/Eleven Films), and has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4, Manchester Royal Exchange, and jointly by Clean Break and Birmingham Rep. She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow 2013, and a Yaddo Fellow 2014.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lomas, Laura

Weitere Mitwirkende

Strindberg, August

Leseproben

ACT ONE

1.

CHRISTINE JULIE

CHRISTINE JULIE

CHRISTINE. I can’t believe you didn’t tell him!

JULIE. I can.

CHRISTINE. He’s gonna go mental.

JULIE. He’ll be fine!

CHRISTINE. I think he might kill you.

JULIE. He can’t kill me, it’s illegal to kill people.

And anyway, there’ll be too many witnesses.

CHRISTINE. How many people are coming?

JULIE. Not that many. A hundred?

CHRISTINE. A hundred?

JULIE. It’s not that many.

CHRISTINE. It’s a hundred people…

JULIE. It’s my house.

CHRISTINE. I mean, technically, he owns it…

JULIE. Property is theft, Christine.

CHRISTINE. I don’t think that works, in this context but…

JULIE. Do you want some more?

CHRISTINE. I’m still going.

JULIE

What did he say?

JULIE. I don’t know, just some shit about having to work, emergency board meeting blah blah.

CHRISTINE. Bullshit.

JULIE. Exactly. He’s gone to have sex with his girlfriend.

CHRISTINE. Gross.

JULIE. ‘Sky’.

CHRISTINE. Ugh.

JULIE. As if that’s even her real name.

CHRISTINE. I bet she made it up.

JULIE. She definitely made it up.

It’s so embarrassing.

JULIE

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided to disown him.

CHRISTINE. I’m not sure you can technically do / that –

JULIE. You can. I googled it.

All you have to do is be like ‘I disown you’ and then they’re no longer your father.

CHRISTINE. I know, but like, biologically…

JULIE. Parents are a social construct.

CHRISTINE. That’s not true.

JULIE. Many cultures don’t even have parents.

CHRISTINE. Oh my God, who have you been following?

JULIE. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I don’t think you deserve to call someone your daughter, specifically me, call me, your daughter, if you cancel plans to have dinner, on my eighteenth birthday, so you can go and have sex with a twenty-four-year-old.

CHRISTINE. It’s so gross.

JULIE. I know. He’s a paedophile.

CHRISTINE

CHRISTINE. I mean, he’s not a paedophile…

JULIE. He is basically a paedophile.

CHRISTINE. I’m not sure you can call your dad a / paedophile, when he’s not a paedophile.

JULIE. He’s no longer my dad. And yes I can.

CHRISTINE. You’re talking shit.

JULIE. I’m talking truth to power.

CHRISTINE. That’s like a totally different thing.

JULIE. You’re always correcting me…

CHRISTINE. You’ll get him arrested.

JULIE. Well maybe he should be?

It is basically incest.

CHRISTINE. Okay, it’s not incest.

JULIE. It is incest.

CHRISTINE. Technically, like, no. She’s not his daughter /

JULIE. But she could be /

CHRISTINE. But she’s not /

JULIE. But she could be /

CHRISTINE. But she’s not /

JULIE. I don’t see the difference.

CHRISTINE. The difference is, she’s not.

JULIE. I kind of feel like you’re taking his side.

CHRISTINE. I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying it’s not incest, it’s not incest because she’s not his daughter. / You have to be biologically related to someone to make having sex with them incest, and why are we even talking about this it’s so gross, it’s freaking me out and –

JULIE. But she could be, she could technically be, he could’ve had her when he was like twenty-five, and that’s not too young to have a child, many people have children when they’re twenty-five, or even younger, so –

CHRISTINE. Julie!

JULIE

JULIE. What?

CHRISTINE. You know what.

CHRISTINE

JULIE. Pass me that bottle.

CHRISTINE JULIE

You know you look amazing?

CHRISTINE. Be quiet.

JULIE. You do. Where is this dress from?

CHRISTINE. Oh. It’s just an old one.

JULIE. It looks amazing.

CHRISTINE. Shut up.

JULIE. It does, you look so fit.

CHRISTINE. No I don’t.

JULIE. I want to take a picture of you /

CHRISTINE. Okay.

CHRISTINE

JULIE. Okay. Camera is coming out…

CHRISTINE

Okay go!

CHRISTINE JULIE

And another.

CHRISTINE JULIE

One more.

CHRISTINE JULIE

Okay now together.

JULIE

And again.

One more.

JULIE CHRISTINE

CHRISTINE. You okay?

JULIE. Yeah. Just. Glad you’re here.

JULIE

You haven’t drunk your drink?

CHRISTINE. I will. Just. Starting slow.

CHRISTINE JULIE

What time are people getting here?

JULIE. I don’t know.

CHRISTINE. When did you say?

JULIE. From eight.

CHRISTINE. It’s ten past?

JULIE. So soon, then.

JULIE CHRISTINE

CHRISTINE. Julie…

JULIE. Mmm?

CHRISTINE

CHRISTINE. Ahm… it doesn’t matter.

What did you do about Diana in the end?

JULIE. Oh. Nothing. She’s fine. She’s asleep. I put her in one of the bedrooms. Gave her a blanket.

CHRISTINE. You still think she’s pregnant?

JULIE. She is. She definitely is. I looked it up online. That’s why her nipples were so big and like that weird / colour and everything.

CHRISTINE. It’s so gross.

JULIE. It’s fine, anyway. I sorted it.

CHRISTINE. What do you mean?

JULIE. I gave her the morning-after pill.

CHRISTINE. What do you mean?

JULIE. It’ll be fine.

CHRISTINE. Julie?

JULIE. What?

CHRISTINE. She’s a dog!

JULIE. So?

CHRISTINE. So you can’t just give dogs the morning-after pill.

JULIE. Why not?

CHRISTINE. Because they’re dogs.

JULIE. I still don’t see your point.

CHRISTINE. It’s bad for them.

JULIE. Well, everything is bad for everyone nowadays.

CHRISTINE. I’m being serious.

JULIE. So am I. She was fine. I crushed it up and put it on one of those dog biscuit things. She absolutely loved it.

CHRISTINE. Julie?!

JULIE. She did! Honestly, it was a real treat.

JULIE CHRISTINE CHRISTINE JULIE

Anyway. It’s better than having some random mongrel’s pups inside her, isn’t it? Polluting her bloodline.

CHRISTINE. What, cus pugs are so pure?

JULIE. She’s not a pug, I hate it when people call her a pug, she’s a French bulldog, and yes actually she is very pure. She has a certificate.

JULIE

Anyway. It’s probably a Staffie.

CHRISTINE. I like Staffies.

...