( Cheryl, a single mother of her only child Brian has grown sick of life in the city and wants to move to a nice village which she knows will do her son good as well, but her son is being very stubborn and refuses to leave the city. She finally decides to trick her son into it ).
Cheryl-: Brian, turn off the TV and come over to the car, I need you to help me with my shopping. Brian? Brian I know that you can hear me come here this very instant! BRIAN!
Brian-: Coming….. Mom….. Do you really need me to help you out? It can’t be that bad can it.
Cheryl-: Well, actually it is that bad, I will not be able to carry all the things and I need your help.
( Cheryl opens the door for Brian to enter the car ).
Brian-: So where are we going?
Cheryl-: I don’t know…. I need a lot of things… I will have to visit a lot of shops.
Brian-: ( Groans ) But why at this time of the day?
Cheryl-: Good question….
Brian-: Right. ( Pauses for a while expecting his mom to say more ) So do I get an answer that’s good enough?
Cheryl-: No. Just stop the questions, I also have some very important things to discuss with you.
Brian-: She told you didn’t she? I knew she would! She takes her threats very seriously! Now I am gonna be grounded for ages all because of that blabber mouth. All that I did was ring her door bell and run away. Why does she have to get all worked up for that. I am so gonna kill her in school tomorrow.. Jane you just wait!
Cheryl-: Errr… That was not exactly what I was going to talk to you about, but now that you say so, yes, I will deal with your mischief later. So back to what I was trying to say…. I have decided that the city…….
Brian-: You mean she didn’t tell on me? Awwwww that’s so sweet of her. I knew that I could…
Cheryl-: BRIAN! Can you PLEASE STOP cutting me off while I am speaking. I know that you are doing this on purpose. So just shut up and listen to me!
Brian-: Mom, I am not moving away from here and you cant make me!
Cheryl-: Brian, sweetheart listen to me… there are instances when some decisions are made without our consent even though they affect our lives very much. And this is such an instan…..
Brian-: I AM NOT MOVING!!
Cheryl-: LISTEN! As I was saying… this is such an instance. I have decided that you should move cities with me, and there is nothing you can do about it, but there are many good prospects in moving as well.
Brian-: Yeah right! Just a couple of hours back, I actually thought that you had changed your mind.
And good prospects? What do you mean? Oh sure , I really am gonna enjoy studying near a farm. Boy am I gonna love it or what? ( Puts on his most sarcastic expression).
Cheryl-: This is not a the time for sarcasm. And yes there are many things that you could take advantage of.
Brian-: ( Rolls his eyes ) Yeah? Like what?
Cheryl-: Well, you could build a whole new reputation. All the bad memories of you will remain only in the minds of some Londoners. The fresh air will make you healthier and…
Brian-: Whatever mom, I don’t care about my stupid reputation and ( looks out of the window)…. Mom?
Cheryl-: Yeah?
Brian-: I didn’t know that there were so many sheep in London.
Cheryl-: We are not in London anymore…
Brian-: What!
Cheryl-: This. This is your new home.
Hi, Lady Macbeth!
ReplyDeleteWhat I really like about this piece is how well you establish the difference between the voices. There’s the motherly voice of Cheryl talking about things like decisions and consent, and we get the impression that Brian is only half listening to what she’s saying, emphasised through the teenage language such as “whatever” and the use of sarcasm. Watch your spellings, though, as you’ve used the American “Mom” throughout, rather than the English “Mum”.
You build the tension effectively, as we know what Cheryl is trying to say, whereas Brian doesn’t, which is known as dramatic irony. You show their personalities well, through your changing speech styles, but also through their interrupting of each other. I really enjoyed Cheryl’s hypocrisy, as she tells Brian not to interrupt her whilst doing the same to him—it just shows what parents can get away with that teenagers can’t! Very true to life.
I’m not sure about your stage directions at the beginning, though. It’s really good to set the scene, so that we know where about in the action we’re coming in, however I wonder if you’re giving too much away. Perhaps this would benefit from you just getting rid of that last sentence, “she finally decides to trick her son into it,” as that way we still know that she’s trying to tell Brian about the move, but we don’t necessarily realise that she’s actually driving him there now! This will make the twist at the end even more effective.
Also, it seems a little contrived, with asking him to help with the shopping and his suspicious questions. I’m not sure that in reality this would be a trick that would work. I like that he’s so absorbed in the conversation that he doesn’t notice they’re driving to the countryside, but I think that she would have planned something a little more convincing for this huge event (she doesn’t have any answers to his questions). Also, would they not have had to pack up everything from their old house… surely he would have noticed this?
Sorry to be so pedantic about this, but you establish the characters, mood and tension so well that it’s a shame to have it not seem all that plausible because of little details. It works well how quickly they spiral into an argument, though, as this is something that definitely would happen with a parent in a child discussing something in a car—so parts of this are really realistic.
Well done!
Katie
You’ve taken a risk in exploring voice with this piece, and in some ways it works brilliantly; in others it needs a little more work – but that’s usually the way with risks!
ReplyDeleteI think the major risk you’ve taken is in the blurring of realist and surrealist – I’m just not sure quite how intentional this is. The way the characters interact is believable within the comic realm you’ve placed them – obviously, the scenarios (like Brian’s exposure of his “mischief”) are tailored to comedy rather than a realistic way for people to talk to each other. But the mother is curiously deceptive, too, and there’s a surreal, dreamlike sense of things not being as they seem, of Brian missing the point. I think the play simply needs to be longer for this to work; at the moment, it serves merely to befuddle the reader rather than provide a revelation or twist. In my experience, twists are only surprising or intriguing once an assured reality has been presented and established, even if this reality is not realistic; the twist then turns everything on its head, providing for the audience the shock of not knowing what to believe.
In this case, we simply find that the mother isn’t to be trusted; while our sympathies should be with Brian, he is mischievous too, and he is not yet fully drawn enough for us to love him despite his foibles.
As I said before, though, you’ve tried to subvert expectations here: the problem, I think, lies in having just a little too much plot to fit into such a short space. Writing to this length, we really have to see just a “moment”; this moment can be as surprising and fulfilling as any longer play, but it can’t contain all the plot as well.
Nonetheless, this is sparky and enjoyable, and you’ve got verve for writing voice. Well done.
Hey Lady Macbeth. I’m sorry this is so late – my computer has been weird and hasn’t let me post things. As a result of this, the other’s have covered a lot of what I was going to say between them, so I am just going to edit down what I previously had because you don’t need the same point said a few times.
ReplyDeleteBut, what else? Katie has touched on this slightly, but I want to talk about your use of tage directions. You have done such a fantastic job of showing your story through the dialogue, that I’m not sure you need any of them. Remember, on the whole, stage directions are to show and action (physical or technical) and not necessarily to set the scene. All of the details you reveal in the opening directions are there for the audience to pick up on as your dialogue starts. Don’t assume we need everything spelt out for us – half the fun of reading or watching something is trying to figure out what is happening!
Similarly, slightly later on, you direct Brian to put on a sarcastic expression, but from what his mother says to him in the following line, we know and the actors and directors will know he is being sarcastic. I think if you have too many stage directions, you end up limiting the possibilities of your text, or worse, end up having them ignored anyway.
Other than that, this is a good concept and really has a lot of potential for some fabulous drama. Have a really good read over what the others have said and then play around with the text some more and I’m sure it’ll work wonders!
~ Avani