Take My Phone - Please! Play # 2 by Kate Herbert, 3 April 2020

Kate Herbert · Take My Phone -Please!!

COVID Iso Project

 

This is an audio reading of  Play # 2 Take My Phone – Please! in the Cycle of 8 X 10. This reading is done unrehearsed by me, solo, playing all characters, unedited and reading stage directions. This is my Covid19 Iso project - or part of it. Enjoy! Many more to come with me doing all characters or with another performer.

The play depicts four very different people on a train, their relationship to their mobile phones and how they react when a crazed thief enters the carriage and steals their mobile phones.

CHARACTERS: 2 MALE, 3 FEMALE

OLDER WOMAN. 70s. Has adult daughter and two grandchildren.

HIPSTER: MALE 30s. Successful web-page designer. Feigns interest in things eco-friendly but more interested in money.

GIRL: 17. Obsessed with social media and her boyfriend.

YOUNGER WOMAN: 30s, mother of three.

CRAZY GUY: 20s. Scruffy, homeless, mentally ill.

LOCATION

Suburban train carriage. 

8 X 10 - A cycle of 8 plays approx 10 minutes each. 

Play # 1 Baggage
Play # 2 Phone Calls on a Train
Play # 3 Social ME-dia
Play # 4 Lover Boy!
Play # 5 The House That Alex Built
Play # 6 DB and Scruff
Play # 7 Thievin’ Thugs
Play # 8 Foxy’s Hangout

The 8 plays are connected not by a narrative thread, but by themes and characters. A character that is only mentioned in a play then appears in the following play until we get to Play # 8, when a character is mentioned who appeared in Play # 1.

As I wrote the plays, I realised that each dealt with a different social issue: bullying, perceptions of disability, street violence etc. I then noticed that each play had characters using mobile phones and that phone technology had become a character!

Cast

Baggage – 1 Woman, 1 Man

Take My Phone -Please!– 3 Women, 2 Men

Social ME-dia – 1 Woman, 1 Teenage Girl

Lover Boy! – 1 Woman, 1 Teenage Boy

The House That Alex Built– – 1 Man, 1 Woman

DB & Scruff – 1 Man, 1 Woman

Thievin’ Thugs – 2 Men (2 off-stage voice)

Foxy’s Hangout ­ – 2 Men

                     

 See extracts on following pages of blog.