Payne Incognito

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-31708-0
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 96 Seiten

The brain builds a narrative to steady us from moment to moment, but it is absolutely an illusion. There is no me, there is no you, and there is certainly no self. Princeton, New Jersey. 1955. Thomas Stoltz Harvey performs the autopsy on Albert Einstein - and then steals his brain. Bath, England. 1953. Henry undergoes pioneering brain surgery. The surgery changes Henry's life, and the history of neuroscience. London, England. The Present. Martha is a clinical neuropsychologist. When her marriage breaks down she starts to make radically different choices. Three interwoven stories exploring the nature of identity and how we are defined by what we remember, Incognito is an exhilarating exploration of what it means to be human. Nick Payne's Incognito premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle, in April 2014 in a co-production with nabokov and HighTide Festival Theatre.

Nick Payne's plays include If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet (Bush), One Day When We Were Young (Paines Plough), Lay Down Your Cross (Hampstead), Wanderlust and Constellations (Royal (Royal Court). He was awarded the 2009 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright and was the 2010 Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Bush Theatre.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Payne, Nick

Leseproben

Encoding

Michael Evelyn?

Evelyn Excuse me?

Michael Michael.

Evelyn Well hello there, Michael.

Michael Oh my God, it is, like, wow, it is like so great to meet you.

Evelyn Pleasure meeting you too. You picked a busy place?

Michael I kinda did. Huh. There’s a place right across the street, we could totally –

Evelyn No.

Michael It is kinda loud in here, though, huh?

Evelyn What’s that?

Michael I was saying it’s kinda loud in here!

Evelyn () I know.

Michael Got it.

Evelyn I’m more of an indoor typa person anyhow.

Michael Oh, okay.

Evelyn Which is why I asked –

Michael You asked me to choose a place to meet.

Evelyn That’s right. I’m normally more of an indoor kinda gal.

Michael Are we, are we not indoors?

Evelyn Meaning my apartment.

Michael Got it.

Evelyn Agoraphobic.

Michael Got it.

Evelyn Maybe, I dunno. Do you know what I mean by that?

Michael Sure. You kinda, you kinda don’t like goin’ outdoors, right?

Evelyn Exactly. I don’t particularly like going anywhere, tell you the truth. I kinda like my apartment and my apartment kinda likes me.

Michael You wanna go there? We can totally do that. My car is right out front.

Evelyn No, I don’t think so. But thank you.

Michael Evelyn, we can totally go to your apartment.

Evelyn Let’s start.

Michael Yes.

Evelyn Let’s get this thing started –

Michael Yes.

Evelyn And I dunno, if I start to feel –

Michael You kinda start feeling –

Evelyn Then maybe we can –

Michael We can totally –

Evelyn So as I mentioned to you in my letter –

Michael Okay.

Evelyn Two months ago –

Michael Yes.

Evelyn Give or take –

Michael Okay.

Evelyn I had a telephone call –

Michael Got it.

Evelyn I’m sorry, would you … would you mind not interrupting me.

Michael Oh my God I am sorry.

Evelyn It’s okay.

Michael I’m so sorry, it’s like a tic, it’s like some tic. But I’ll totally, I can totally – ()

Evelyn Two months ago, give or take, I had a telephone call from a gentleman named Brian Schulman.

Michael The biographer? Dammit, sorry.

Evelyn It’s okay. The biographer, yes.

Michael He’s writing about your grandfather?

Evelyn You know ’bout that?

Michael I know about that.

Evelyn Oh really?

Michael I wanted to write about your grandfather too.

Evelyn Oh, really.

Michael Yeah, I had this whole idea for these, like, three separate books, these like three separate or whatever, each, you know, each kinda focusing on a totally different – Anyway, when I spoke to my publisher about it, they were like, too late; this other guy, this Brian Schulman, he’s already doin’ it. I mean he’s not doing the whole three book thing, but my publisher was like, he’s tryina write the definitive, I mean whatever that is, right?

Evelyn I didn’t realise your passion ran quite so deep, Michael.

Michael So, okay, I’m just gonna say it and then we can, like – I am obsessed with your grandfather. I mean literally . My dad was a science nut and when he died, and I mean I was a mess, he had all these books about your grandfather, and I gotta tell you, I just, I totally just dived right in. And I was like this totally, like, grieving mess and reading about your grandfather was, like, thing that got me through an otherwise ridiculously awful period in my life. Anyway, God, I interrupted you, I totally interrupted you.

Evelyn Well. Mr Schulman put it to me that I had not been told the entire truth about my lineage. He put it to me that the man I thought to be my father, Hans Albert, was in fact my brother. According to Mr Schulman, when Albie was sixty-two years of age, he had an affair with a ballet dancer. The New York Ballet. The reason I never knew about it was because Albie’s executor –

Michael Otto?

Evelyn Otto Nathan.

Michael Incredible name. Sorry.

Evelyn Mr Nathan kept my … kept Albie’s indiscretion a secret.

Michael But oh my God, when he died – Sorry.

Evelyn So that’s correct, when Otto died and Mr Schulman decided he wanted to write his book, the first place he went was the estate and, as he put it to me, there were reams and reams of letters and correspondences, and journals, and so on and so forth. But the problem is, the only way, the only way to know for sure –

Michael Uh-huh.

Evelyn – would be to do some kinda DNA test.

Michael DNA test?

Evelyn So they tell me.

Michael () Oh my God: the brain.

Evelyn You really are obsessed.

Michael Thomas Harvey, right, he’s the guy, Thomas Harvey, he’s the guy with the brain, right?

Evelyn Do you know him, Michael?

Michael Me? No.

Evelyn Is he still alive do you know?

Michael He’s gotta be.

Evelyn Albie died in 1955, Michael, I’m not so sure.

Michael You’d know if he was dead.

Evelyn Michael, can I trust you?

Michael Hundred and ten per cent.

Evelyn There’s no such thing.

Michael No, I know, I was … it’s just a thing people say.

Evelyn Relax, I know.

Michael You got me; that was a good one.

Evelyn Do you think you can find him?

Michael I might have to write about it, but yeah.

Evelyn Write about it?

Michael Speak to my editor about it – I mean it might just make it easier to find him if I’m not just doing it on my own, you...