Rock 'n' Roll (3 page)

‘Golden Hair' as recorded by Syd Barrett is based on a poem by James Joyce from
Chamber Music
(in
Poems and Shorter Writings,
Faber and Faber). Barrett's lyrics, however, do not conform to
Joyce's poem (where ‘Goldenhair' is one word and where the phrase ‘in the midnight air' does not occur). I am grateful to the James Joyce Estate for its tolerance in this matter.

I use the phrase ‘smash cut' to mean that all the cues for sound and light are called as one cue, so that one state (e.g., music in blackout) jumps into a completed state (e.g., silence and daylight) without fades or builds. Before each scene, if the year changes, the appropriate date is projected.

Since this is a reading copy of
Rock ‘n' Roll
for English-speakers, I have not included dialogue in Czech. Where Czech is spoken, the burden of the dialogue is made clear to the reader. I do not know Czech myself, so I have no qualms about actors and directors making their own arrangements to supply the utterance, which in any case is half-buried by hubbub (as at the beginning of the lunch party).

… in brackets is overlapped or swallowed.

Czech characters speaking ‘Czech' to each other do so without accents. Czech characters speaking English speak with a ‘Czech accent'.

… is a problem. In Act One, Jan and Ferdinand should start off with moderately long hair which gets, in Jan's case, very long until they get prison haircuts; after which Ferdinand would let his hair grow again. In Act Two, Jan should have an eighties haircut, though Ferdinand could stay shaggy. Nigel should have seventies long hair in Act One and an eighties haircut in Act Two.

 

Rock ‘n' Roll
was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 3 June 2006, and transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre on 22 July 2006, presented by Sonia Friedman Productions, Tulbart Productions, Michael Linnit for National Angels and Boyett Ostar Productions. The cast in order of appearance was as follows:

THE PIPER/POLICEMAN 1/STEPHEN
Edward Hogg

ESME
(younger)/
ALICE
Alice Eve

JAN
Rufus Sewell

MAX
Brian Cox

ELEANOR/ESME
(older) Sinead Cusack

GILLIAN/MAGDA/DEIRDRE
Miranda Colchester

INTERROGATOR/NIGEL
Anthony Calf

FERDINAND
Peter Sullivan

MILAN/POLICEMAN 2/WAITER
Martin Chamberlain

LENKA
Nicole Ansari

CANDIDA
Louise Bangay

Director
Trevor Nunn

Designer
Robert Jones

Costume Designer
Emma Ryott

Lighting Designer
Howard Harrison

Sound Designer
Ian Dickinson

Associate Director
Paul Robinson

Company Voice Work
Patsy Rodenburg

in order of appearance

THE PIPER

ESME
(younger)

JAN

MAX

ELEANOR

GILLIAN

INTERROGATOR

FERDINAND

MILAN

MAGDA

POLICEMAN 1

POLICEMAN 2

LENKA

NIGEL

ESME
(older)

ALICE

STEPHEN

CANDIDA

DEIRDRE

WAITER

Esme in Act One and Alice are to be played by the same actress; similarly Eleanor and Esme in Act Two.

Further doubling (or tripling) is optional. The intention is that the twenty characters may be played by a company of twelve. The Royal Court used a company of eleven, with the result that Milan became Policeman 2; however, this is not the preferred option.

Rock ‘n' Roll

Blackout.

THE PIPER
is heard.

Then, night in the garden. The Piper is squatting on his heels high up on the garden wall, his wild dark hair catching some light, as though giving off light. His pipe is a single reed like a penny whistle. He plays for
ESME
, who is sixteen, a flower child of the period: 1968.

Light from the interior catches Esme dimly, her flowing garment, her long golden hair.

The interior shows part of a dining room, lowly lit by a lamp. There is a walk-through frontier between the room and the ‘unlit' garden, which is leafy with a stone-flagged part large enough for a garden table and two or three chairs.

The Piper pipes the tune and then sings.

THE PIPER

‘Lean out of your window,

Golden Hair,

I heard you singing

In the midnight air.

My book is closed,

I read no more …'

JAN
enters the interior from within, going to the garden, into the spill of light. He is twenty-nine. His Czech accent is not strong.

The Piper laughs quietly to himself and vanishes, a spring-heeled jump into dark.

ESME
Who's that? Jan?

JAN
(
a greeting) Ahoj.
What are you doing?

ESME
Did you see him?

JAN
Who?

ESME
Pan!

JAN
Pan. Where?

ESME
There.

JAN
No. Did he have goat's feet?

ESME
I couldn't see. He played on his pipe and sang to me.

JAN
Very nice. Have you got any left?

ESME
Don't believe me, then.

JAN
Who said I don't believe you? I came to say goodbye to Max.

ESME
Where are you going?

JAN
Prague.

ESME
Why? Oh, yeah. What about the summer teach-in? Will you come back to Cambridge?

JAN
(
shrugs: don't know
) I'm leaving everything here.

ESME
Your records?

JAN
No. Everything else. But now I must go home.

ESME
What, to help the Russians?

JAN
No.

ESME
Max thinks it's great about the Russians.

JAN
No, he doesn't. We don't.

ESME
Ha—some Communists you are!

Overheard by
MAX,
coming from indoors. He's nearly fifty-one, a bruiser.

MAX
Go to bed, you … flower child.

ESME
I'd like to go to Prague, poke flowers into the ends of their gun barrels.

JAN
I'm glad I saw you, Esme.

ESME
Peace and love, Jan. I want to give you something to take.

JAN
What something?

ESME
I don't know. Come and see before you go. Will you?

JAN
Yes.

ESME
In case you die. Peace and love, Pa.

MAX
Wouldn't that be nice? Keep your pop groups down, Mum's just managed to get off.

ESME
(mocks) ‘Pop groups …'

She goes into the house.

MAX
(
uncharmed
) Sweet sixteen.

JAN
So. Some sunny day. Thank you.

Jan hesitates, starts to go. Max turns dangerous.

MAX
Sovereignty was never the point. You know that.

JAN
(
cautious, calming
) Okay.

MAX
Being Czech, being Russian—German, Polish—fine,
vive la différence,
but going it alone is going against the alliance, you know this.

JAN
Okay.

MAX
It's comfort and joy to capitalism, comfort and joy, and your bloody Dubcek did this, not the Soviets—I speak as one who's kicked in the guts by nine-tenths of anything you can tell me about Soviet Russia.

JAN
Why have you stayed in the Party?

MAX
Because of the tenth, because they made the revolution and no one else.

JAN
So okay.

MAX
Prague bloody Spring? It was never about the
workers.

JAN
(Okay.)

MAX
No, it's not okay, you little squit. I picked you out. I put my thumbprint on your forehead. I said,
‘You.
I'll take
you,'
because you were serious and you knew your Marx … and at the first flutter of a Czech flag you cut and run like an old woman still in love with Masaryk.

JAN
Dubcek is a Communist.

MAX
(
roused
) No—
I'm
a Communist, I'd be a Communist with Russian tanks parked in King's Parade, you mummy's boy.

JAN
(
insists
) A reform Communist.

MAX
Like a nun who gives blow-jobs is a reform nun. I have to walk this off. Tell Esme to wait up for me, in case Eleanor wakes. Then fuck off back to Prague. I'm sorry about the tanks.

Blackout and ‘I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' by Bob Dylan.

Smash cut into bright day in the same place, with Max there and
ELEANOR
already speaking. She is in her late forties. She sits at a garden table. She has her work with her.

ELEANOR
He said you knew him, he was a friend of Jan.

MAX
(
catching up
) He was
Czech.

ELEANOR
He said to tell you Jan wasn't coming back, he asked for his things …

MAX
Who asked?

ELEANOR
Milos. Milan. I was a bit thrown at the time because I opened the door to him without my falsy and didn't catch on till he kept staring at my face—he daren't drop his eyes, it scared him. Doesn't she know she's only got one tit? I should keep a bow and arrow handy to put people at their ease—yes, it's toxophily, the big T, irreversible, thank you, no sacrifice is too great.

Max silenced, to her name.

MAX
Eleanor.

ELEANOR
He was sucking on a lozenge, he offered me one, gazing into my eyes and breathing eucalyptus at me like a koala caught in the headlights.

Max perhaps touches her face.

MAX
He was probably staring for the same reason as me the first time I … It was never your, your breast, it was always your face. I love your face.

ELEANOR
You loved my tits, that's why breasts is plural.

MAX
It makes no difference, you know.

ELEANOR
Well, it does to me!

MAX
Yes—yes, of course it does, I only meant … you know, it makes no (difference).

He makes to hold her, Eleanor fights him off, tearfully angry.

ELEANOR
If it makes no difference, Max, you don't have to stop making love to me from behind, it's all right—all right?

Suddenly infreefall, they clutch, competing in apology and comfort.

MAX
(
finally
) My Amazon. Just don't lose half your bum, that's all.