Contemporary Duologues: One Man & One Woman

2nd May 1997

Jack Thorne

WHOSarah, twenty-eight, and Ian, twenty-nine. Out of context both characters could be played either younger or older.

WHEREIan’s tiny bedsit.

WHEN2.41 a.m. on 2nd May 1997.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENEDSarah has met Ian at an election-night party hosted by the Liberal Democrats. Their duologue comes in the middle of a full-length play that sees two other couples, the first set earlier that night and the third set the following morning.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

• It is election night, 1997. The year that Blair came to power and led a landslide victory for the Labour Party.

• It was hot in London that night and there was an atmosphere of shock and excitement as many high-profile Conservative politicians, including Michael Portillo, lost their seats. In his case to a completely unknown candidate at the time, Stephen Twigg.

• The stage direction reads: ‘SARAH [is] drunk, but not so you’d notice immediately’ , but be careful not to overplay Sarah’s drunkenness. Drunk people tend to make a special effort to appear sober.

• As we discover in the scene, Sarah has mistaken Ian for a man called James whom she fancies.

• Sarah is very much of the Bridget Jones and the Sex and the City generation of women. These books were first published in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

• The following excerpt comes at the beginning of a much longer scene between the two of them. Later on in the duologue we discover that, a year ago to the day, Sarah’s mother was brutally murdered. Ian’s mother has cancer and both characters are having to confront mortality.

• Although the scene starts comedically, and seems to be as much about sex as anything else, it is important to carry a sense of the characters’ pain from the outset.

• The singer Cilla Black presented the hugely popular television series Blind Date . She had a Liverpudlian accent and her question to the contestants – ‘What’s your name and where do you come from?’ – became a kind of catchphrase.

• The ‘Millennium Bug’ was the fear that in the year 2000 all computer data would be lost.

• Read the play to see what happens at the end and to make a decision about whether you think these two could end up together.

• Words in [square brackets] are there to indicate intention, and not to be spoken.

WHAT SARAH WANTS

• Attention. (Think about how she loves to shock.)

• To be heard.

• To find comfort.

• Relief from her loneliness.

• To be held, both emotionally and physically.

WHAT IAN WANTS

• Company. (In order not to have to think about the fact that his mother is dying.)

WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUTThe fear of insignificance, loneliness, abandonment, mortality.

NBThis play offers a number of other duologues from which to choose.

A tidy bedsit. SARAH enters first, she’s drunk, but not especially so you’d notice immediately. IAN isn’t drunk.

SARAH. Oh, it’s not that messy…

IAN. It’s not tidy.

SARAH. With the bed to the side…

IAN. And the sofa… there… you want to sit down?

SARAH. I want to look around.

IAN. Looking for what?

SARAH. I just want to poke…

I like people poking about my house.

I like people being intrigued.

IAN smiles.

IAN. Then we should have gone to yours… I could have been intrigued at [yours] –

SARAH. No, I followed you… If you had followed me we could have gone back to mine.

But I made the move, so I won a trip to your house.

She starts to poke about. IAN looks at his hands.

My mum used to love poking about my room – poke – poke – one time she found an old toothbrush she insisted I was using as a dildo. I was fifteen years old – she said, ‘Lots of girls have very healthy sexual appetites at your age, I know I did, but it’s a very confusing as well as perfectly natural time.’

IAN laughs. SARAH looks at him.

IAN. My dad just gave me a book. Your Body and You.

SARAH. ‘It’s perfectly natural, do you want to talk about it?

The dildo?’ No, she called it something else. She called it something – I can’t remember – I think she may have called it a ‘sexual device’. Truth was, she’d heard about it on Radio 4 – Woman’s Hour did dildos. Sexual devices.

But the truth also was that I had a new pair of Doc Martens and I was proud of them and mud and shit kept getting caught in the tread, because it was quite deep tread, so I used a toothbrush to… True story. Bet I don’t look like a woman who used to wear Docs as a kid.

Maybe I do. Do I?

IAN. You could…

SARAH. You should have seen the toothbrush – I mean, you must wonder what she thought I had up my fanny. The toothbrush was… not clean. It was brown. The bristles were brown. I mean, really quite… really quite… not nice.

IAN isn’t sure how to respond, so just smiles.

Pause. She continues to try and behave casually as she pokes through his stuff. Eventually, she needs to break the silence…

What shall I do with my coat?

IAN. Oh. Just put it anywhere.

SARAH. I hate phrases like that. ‘Just put it anywhere.’ I feel like shouting at the screen – ‘It’s your dick, put it in her fanny.’

She starts to take off her shoes, they look like they’ve hurt her feet.

IAN. Do you?

SARAH. Sorry, am I being confrontational? It’s a mixture of drunkenness and fear of sex.

IAN. Right.

She gives her shoes to IAN. Who doesn’t quite know what to do with them, and so puts them down beside himself. In the centre of the room. It’s an odd place for shoes. She looks at where he’s put them. She looks at him. Slightly accusingly.

SARAH. Don’t worry. I’m not going to take the rest of my clothes off and hand them to you…

IAN. Not that – no.

She laughs. He doesn’t know why.

SARAH. You were giving as good as you got at the party…

IAN. No. I wasn’t –

SARAH. You fucking were, wideboy.

IAN. No. Was I?

SARAH. What was it you said… I can’t remember how you said it… You said something about Blair being one bollock short of a mouthful.

IAN. I didn’t.

SARAH. ‘The thing about Tony Blair is, he’s one bollock short of a mouthful.’

IAN. I think you’ve got me mixed up.

SARAH. ‘One bollock short of a mouthful.’ It’s a lovely phrase. I was quite surprised at a Liberal Democrat…

IAN. I think… that was probably James.

SARAH. James?

IAN. James. Yes. James. He came with me. Wiry hair. Grey jacket.

I’m not much of a talker. You were mostly talking to him.

I was there. But you two talked.

He’s not really a Liberal Democrat.

Beat. SARAH appraises the situation.

SARAH. And what happened to James?

IAN. Um. Well…

He, uh… He had to go home.

SARAH bullet laughs and then bullet laughs again.

SARAH. I went home with the wrong guy.

IAN. No.

SARAH (really laughing). I went home with the wrong guy.

IAN. It’s – um – Did you?

SARAH. Jesus. Am I that drunk?

Pause.

James.

IAN. We work together. He’s a good friend. Well. Colleague.

Wiry hair. Grey jacket. Do you want to leave?

SARAH. Fuck no. This is exciting. This is like ‘Guess Who?’ but… sexual. ‘Sexual Guess Who?’ Awesome.

She’s staring at him quite intently.

IAN. Do you want the TV on? We could check what’s –

SARAH. See how far you’ve lost yet…

IAN. Well. Not really about the winning.

Not that it’s about the taking part either…

SARAH laughs again.

SARAH. It was a good party. ‘Sexual Guess Who?’ Who are you?

IAN. Who am I?

SARAH (Cilla Black impression). ‘Hello, number two, what’s your name and where do you come from?’

IAN. Don’t…

She laughs again. He doesn’t know why. Again.

SARAH. The Party party?

IAN. What?

SARAH. A Party having a party – funny when you – I thought that was funny – a Party having a party – Who was I talking about that with…? Did we talk at all?

IAN. Of course we did… we, um… we talked about the Millennium Bug.

SARAH. I only went because my friend Ruth told me free – booze… ‘Come to the Party party.’ It might have been her I was – talking about it with.

IAN. Yeah? Yeah. That’s sort of why James came… We don’t really… It’s open-door. We talked about restricting, but…

SARAH. I can fit my whole fist in my mouth. Can you do that?

IAN. What? Can you?

SARAH. Sorry – party – party tricks, that’s the way my brain works, I won’t show you. It’s painful and makes me look very unattractive.

IAN. I’m sure it doesn’t.

SARAH. Well… it does…

Pause.

IAN. There was a guy at my school whose party trick was he could fit his whole penis in an eggcup.

Pause. SARAH barks a laugh and then stops.

SARAH. Jesus.

IAN. What?

SARAH. ‘Hello, Cilla, my name is…’

IAN. Ian. We definitely did the names thing… You’re Sarah.

SARAH. ‘And I am a… Liberal Democrat, Cilla.’

IAN. Housing Officer. I’m a Housing Officer.

Pause. SARAH tries to think of a response to that. She fails. She barks another laugh.

SARAH. Have you got any alcohol?

IAN. Good idea. What would you like?

SARAH. I would like a pint of water and a large glass of red wine…

IAN. That… I can do…

SARAH. Good.

IAN exits. SARAH looks around his room. She picks a book out. Will Hutton – The State We’re In. She flicks through. She smiles. She reads a page. She calls off…

You write notes in the margins of your books.

IAN reappears. Suddenly. Anxiously.

IAN. Not really.

SARAH. You’ve written an exclamation mark beside a – you’ve written an exclamation mark – what does it say?

IAN. Don’t read it out.

SARAH reads the paragraph. She reads it again. She frowns. She puts the book back on the shelf.

SARAH. Do you do it for your fiction books too? Do you underline your fiction books? Or is it only facts – are you only interested in facts or do you underline a choice phrase or two in fiction? A lovely Dickens – sentence or a Shakespearean thing. Do you underline?

IAN. Um. Some. Sometimes.

SARAH. What about letters? Do you underline letters?

IAN. Who from?

SARAH. The bank. British Gas. Friends. Family. Lovers. Letters from other people. So you can skim-read them and not have to…

IAN. No. Not… Well. Some[times] –

SARAH. Yeah? Interesting.

IAN. Um… yeah, just… when things matter – I like to remember them.

SARAH shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She looks at IAN. For some reason she likes this.

SARAH. Do you?

IAN. Yeah.

SARAH. Yeah.

IAN thinks, and then exits again. SARAH looks around, sees the bed and stalks over to it. She looks at it a moment and then suddenly pulls back the duvet. She laughs at herself. She touches the sheets underneath. And then bends and smells the sheets. Then she laughs. Then she calls out.

You don’t mind if I check your sheets, do you?

IAN re-enters on the bounce.

IAN. What?

He looks at the bed.

SARAH. I slept with one guy – the other day, I am a bit of a slut, by the way – whose sheets were so greasy, it almost made me sick. They smelt of old sweat and greasy hair and they were horrible to sleep on. Horrible.

I’m not promising anything, just better to know the full facts before making a decision. As the bishop said to the abortionist.

With his thumb up her bottom… Or…

He thinks of how to respond to that, he can’t, he exits. He re-enters, carrying a tray of drinks, he puts them down on his coffee table. He smoothes down a cushion and puts it where she might sit on the sofa. Then he sits on the other sofa. He doesn’t look at her the entire time.