Artistic Discoveries in European Schoolyards

Richard Hurford (Great Britain)
with Giuditta Mingucci (Italy)


What Light

Text Extract

SCENE 3

2061
Sid climbs over the barbed wire fence and approaches the animal carcass. He hunches down and begins to gnaw at it like a wild animal, blood smearing his face. Suddenly Nancy is behind him. She grabs him by the hair and puts the knife to his throat.

Nancy
Hungry, scum boy?

Sid
Let me go!

Nancy
Grandpa was right. You lot are thieves. Always was, always will be.

Sid
Don’t kill me.

Nancy
Why not?

Sid
Because I’m dirty.

Nancy
I know. You stink.

Sid
Dirty and full of diseases.

Nancy
Just like Grandpa said.

Sid
So if you eat me, you’ll get sick and die. It’s just not worth it.

Nancy
Who says we eat people?

Sid
There’s no need to get angry. Please don’t get angry.

She presses the knife into his throat.

Nancy
Who?

Sid
It was my Grandpa . But he’s not right in the head, so -

Nancy
Huh, I know that. Crazy old bugger. Thinks Stuff drops out of the sky.

Sid
I know.

Nancy
Really crazy old bugger shit.

Sid
Yeah? Crazy old bugger shit like thinking Stuff grows on trees?

Nancy
Hey, it had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?

Sid
So maybe it came from the sky.

Nancy
And maybe it came out of your Grandpa’s backside.

Sid
Wherever it came from we all know where it went.

Nancy
Oh yeah, we know that for sure. Dirty thieves!

Sid
Stinking robbers!

Nancy
Scrounging tramps!

Sid
Grabbing scum!

Nancy
Stick it up your hole!

Sid
Stick it up yours!

They both retreat to their tents. Rain engulfs the scene.

SCENE 7

Split scene between both camps – the Grandpas emerge from their tents, pursued by Sid and Nancy, who shout questions at them. The Grandpas are confused and frightened

Grandpa Jack
It was where we lived. It was called a house.

Nancy
What’s a house?

Grandpa Jack
Walls – roof – a front door – rooms. Rooms filled with Stuff.

Nancy
What sort of Stuff?

Grandpa Jack
It’s a long time ago. I can’t remember.

Nancy
Tell me!

Sid
School? What’s school?

Grandpa Dan
Everybody went. All the kids. It was the law.

Sid
What’s law?

Nancy
What did you do in school?

Grandpa Jack
Lessons. Reading, writing, maths, languages and science. We learned everything there was to learn.

Nancy
Why?

Grandpa Jack
So that you could get a good job, be part of the world.

Nancy
A job? The world? What else?

Sid
More!

Grandpa Dan
You’re confusing me, boy.

Nancy
Where did it all come from?

Grandpa Jack
It just was.

Grandpa Dan
It just came.

Sid
Where did it all go?

Grandpa Dan & Grandpa Jack point at each other’s camps.

Grandpa Dan & Grandpa Jack
There!

Grandpa Dan
They took it all, dirty thieving scum.

Grandpa Jack
They stole the lot.

Dragging the Dead Aunties and Uncles with them, they attack each other’s tents, tearing them apart. The frenzy dies down as they find nothing. They scream at each other from the wreckage.

Grandpa Dan
Where is it all, you old thief?

Grandpa Jack
What did you do with it, you old bastard?

Sid
We never had it.

Nancy
We never had anything

Summary

In 2011 two fourteen year old boys, Jack and Daniel, best friends, argue violently about money and possessions, their families and who is to blame for the economic crisis their country is suffering. Ugly things are said about their families. Vicious opinions and accusations they have heard from their parents and learnt from the media are repeated. Their friendship is destroyed.
Suddenly it is 2061 and Jack and Daniel are old men. The world has been transformed and they live in squalor and poverty in tents in a bleak wilderness. Nothing remains of the world they knew as boys, except their hatred and mistrust, which has become an obsession with the years. Their days are spent in hatred and fear of each other and waiting for good things to fall from the sky or grow on the trees, which is all they remember from their youth.
Each has a grandchild, Sid and Nancy, who have known no other life, but now as they enter adolescence they begin to question their grandfathers’ view of the world and ask themselves why they hate each other so much and why life must be so brutal. Their tents are haunted by the zombie ghosts of global celebrities from 2011, who the grandfathers use to terrorise their grandchildren into accepting the situation. But the young people reject the past and their grandfathers and join forces. They destroy the power of the zombie ghosts and leave to find a better life. The grandfathers remember their boyhood friendship fifty years before and realise this is the world they created through their passive acceptance of the situation in the past and believing the lies they were told about each other. But hope lies in their grandchildren who are doing what they never did – asking questions and taking action.


Rightholder:

© Richard Hurford richardhurford@blueyonder.co.uk
Giuditta Mingucci giuditta.mingucci@elsinor.net


Performances:

Commissioned and first performed by Pilot Theatre Company, York, United Kingdom & Teatro Elsinor, Milan, Italy
1st Opening York Theatre Royal Studio May 11, 2011


Cast:
M: 3
F: 1