Polko (eBook)

Angus Harrison (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
978-0-571-38771-7 (ISBN)

Infos

I like this car. It's sort of horrible but I like it. It's a good place for something bad like a breakdown or - As teenagers, Emma, Joe and Polko thought they'd never grow apart. When Emma returns to the suburb of their childhood ten years later, she discovers that nothing, and everything, has changed. Joe is stuck, living with his mum while working part-time in a hotel; Polko has vanished, leaving a cloud of stories and misremembered nights in his wake. Set in the front seats of a parked car, Polko is a modern memory play about the places we call home, and the people we leave behind. Angus Harrison's play opened at the Paines Plough Roundabout at Summerhall, Edinburgh, in August 2023.

Angus Harrison is a playwright from Bristol. His work has been performed at the Royal Court and he was one of ten writers selected by Papatango for their Isolated But Open monologue collection during the pandemic. His radio plays Asystole Belgravia and The Wire Cutters (co-written with Joseph Charlton) were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He is currently developing multiple original ideas for television. Prior to writing plays Angus was a journalist, covering politics, society and nightclubs.

Textauszug

One

Two car seats. Grey patterned fabric, loose seatbelts. Before the play begins: music, but muffled, as if coming from inside the car.

Lights dim to black.

Lights up, sharp. A small pool that coats the car seats in low, yellow light. The radio is on; LOUD. Something soulful, from the 1970s. Magic FM or Smooth.

Peter sits in the driver’s seat. He’s drunk and agitated. He listens to the radio and drinks from a bottle of white wine that he keeps in a blue plastic bag on the passenger seat.

He wipes his mouth and puts the bottle back in the bag. He rummages around in the bag again, removes a charging cable for a phone and dumps it on the passenger seat. Next he removes a small black box from his jacket pocket, looks at it, then puts it back.

He gathers himself, wraps the handles of the blue bag tightly around his wrist, then reaches up to press the interior reading light above him.

Blackout.

*

Darkness.

Joe Alright?

Emma Yeh alright.

Can you hold that?

Joe Yeh.

No probs give it here I’ll.

Cheers.

Emma Sorry got all my

stuff everywhere.

There’s always one too many things for one bag.

Then you end up starting a new bag. /  

Now I’ve got all this shite.

Joe You shouldn’t put your uh

toothbrush in the same bag as your books.

Emma Oh bollocks.

Yeh.

That was a last-minute decision.

Joe Are you nervous?

Emma No.

Not nervous no.

How come?

Joe flicks a lighter and the car interior is illuminated.

He lets go but the light remains.

Joe and Emma are revealed. They sit next to each other, Joe in the driver’s seat, Emma on the passenger side, a duffel bag at her feet and a hot-water bottle clutched to her stomach. Joe is holding a carrier bag containing some of her other possessions. They both look up through the windscreen to the lit windows of a house, somewhere above them.

Joe You’re giving off a uh

very distinct mood.

Just trying to find the right word for it.

Emma Ha right.

Okay yeh sorta.

Not nervous just …

Joe Waiting like …  

Expectant?

Emma Yeh.

Expectant. /

Right.

Joe Or.

Is there a word for like

the feeling of waiting?

You know.

Just before something.

Emma I don’t.

Antici-

patory?

No not. /  

I don’t know.

Joe Yeh maybe but like.

There must be a word for the feeling of waiting.

Emma I –

(Shrugs.)

I don’t know.

I’m sorry.

Thanks let me.

(Takes the carrier bag.)

I’ll take that back.

(To herself.) Okay.

Okay.

(To Joe.) Thanks for the lift

by the way.

Joe Eh no bother.

Emma Okay.

Joe When are they expecting you?

Emma Hm?

Joe Do they know you’re back?

Emma They know I’m back tonight yeh.

Didn’t give them a specific time just …

Joe Right.

Emma Fancy driving us around the block?

Or …

Joe Ha. /  

Well if you want …

Emma (to herself) Okay.

(To Joe.) No it’s okay.

Joe They’ll be pleased to see you.

Won’t they?

Emma Eh.

Who can tell.

Is anyone pleased to see anyone

do you know what I mean?

Joe Well.

I’m pleased to see you.

Emma (smiles) Ah

thank you.

They pretend ‘cheers’ two invisible cups. This relaxes Emma somehow. She falls back into her seat.

D’you wanna come in?

Joe Um.

Emma Just to say hello. /  

You don’t have to.

Joe Yeh.

Nah.

It’s okay.

I said I’d get back.

Mum’s cooked so.

Emma Course.

Joe Get used to that by the way.

Meal times.

Now you’re living at home I mean.

Are you ready to have meal times again?

Emma I hadn’t even thought about it.

Joe Well.

Better start.

Emma I should come and see your mum at some point.

Joe Oh yeh yeh.

She’d love that.

Any time.

Emma How’s she doing she alright?

Joe Oh yeh

fine.

Emma And your sister?

Joe Yeh well.

She visits you know.

Emma She still at the water company?

Joe Yep yeh.

Emma In uh …

Joe Swindon.

Emma Swindon yeh.

,

(Grinning.) What about um.

Your mum’s friend.

He still around?

Peter.

Joe Oh yeh.

The big man.

Well he’s been up to all sorts.

Emma Yeh?

Joe Oh yeh.

Emma Come on gimme.

Joe Um.

Well number one.

You’re in his car.

Well my car now

but

used to be his car

Emma Oh what?

I thought you bought this?

Joe I did.

Off him.

He sold it to me cheap as a bit of favour.

On the condition that I give him lifts

as and when he needs ’em.

So I take him to play pool on Thursdays.

Work a couple of times a week.

Emma Why?

...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.8.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• ISBN-10: 0-571-38771-3 / 0571387713
• ISBN-13: 978-0-571-38771-7 / 9780571387717