Jenny Lovell, Julia Markowski, Geoff Wallis
Spinning Straw is a play about the impact of substance abuse on a pregnant 18year old and a woman who tries to help her. Annie, who prefers to be called “Pig”, is a chronic binge drinker and pill popper. She is pregnant with her second baby but, despite her first child being in care, she persists in her drinking and ignores the danger to her baby. Her neighbour, Margaret, who is a recovering alcoholic herself, tries to reform Pig but there is little hope. Pig is more concerned with the impact of pregnancy on her lifestyle and plans to sell the baby to the highest bidder on the Internet. Spinning Straw incorporates pathos, comedy and music. Interwoven with the story of Pig and Margaret is the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin, the strange little fellow who spun straw into gold for the miller’s daughter in exchange for her first born child. The play is peppered with lullabies, references to folk remedies for hangovers and morning sickness.
Characters
WOMAN AKA MARGARET: 40s. She is PIG’S neighbour, divorced, a recovering alcoholic whose child was taken from her during her alcoholic phase. She is maternal and tries to help PIG to have a healthy baby and to overcome her addictions. She does not speak about her own background and, for a relative stranger, seems overly concerned with the GIRL’S welfare.
GIRL AKA PIG: 18. PIG is a substance abuser and school dropout with an abusive childhood. She had another child at 16 who was taken into foster care. PIG is more concerned about how a pregnancy will kill her social life and how much money she can make from selling a baby.
MAN: 40s. The MAN represents different characters but is generally a cipher, a character that echoes the WOMAN’S thoughts, challenges her, sings lullabies and is the NARRATOR of the Rumpelstiltskin story.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN played by actor playing WOMAN
PRINCESS played by actor playing GIRL
Setting
A transparent screen hangs Upstage from Centre to Stage Right from lighting bar to the floor. A sofa sits Centre-Right stage and a Stool stands Centre Left. Actors appear behind and in front of the screen.
Music
Recorded rock music; abstract soundscape; lullabies sung by MAN.
First staged at La Mama Theatre, Faraday St Carlton, 29 Oct to 15 November 2008
Writer& Director: Kate Herbert
Cast: Geoff Wallis as MAN, Jenny Lovell as WOMAN & RUMPELSTILTSKIN, Julia Markowski as GIRL & PRINCESS
Creative team: Meg White (Set), Roger Alsop (Sound), Angela Cole (Lighting) Douglas Montgomery (Stage Manager)
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EXCERPT – Spinning Straw, a play by Kate Herbert
A transparent screen hangs Upstage from Centre to Stage Right from lighting bar to the floor. A sofa sits Centre-Right stage and a Stool stands Centre Left. Actors appear behind and in front of the screen.
1
LX wild, moving Club lighting
MUSIC Hard Rock.
Behind scrim, WOMAN, GIRL and MAN dance as if at a club. MAN dances between them and seems in control of his movements whereas WOMAN and GIRL do not. Abstract movements indicate drinking, smoking, snorting lines, popping pills. WOMAN bends over to retch then continues dancing, drinking etc. MAN applauds. GIRL bends over to retch. GIRL continues dancing, drinking etc. WOMAN collapses to floor. MAN picks her up. WOMAN continues dancing, drinking etc. GIRL collapses to floor. MAN picks her up. GIRL continues dancing, drinking etc. MAN applauds. This is performed as a sequence until WOMAN and GIRL end up on the floor at the same time. MAN picks them both up and stands holding them up and laughing.
LX change
All step out from behind screen.
MUSIC stops.
2
GIRL scrounges around for cigarettes, coughing. WOMAN sits down looking patient. MAN watches from upstage. It should seem as if they are a family unit initially, as if he is father and she mother. GIRL does not see or hear him but WOMAN is aware of him.
WOMAN: So you can eat more red meat or you can take an iron supplement.
MAN: Oh, for crying out loud!
WOMAN: (ignores MAN) Did the doctor tell you…?
GIRL: Have you got any fags? (hunting)
WOMAN: (as if for the 100th time) Annie, I don’t smoke. I’ll get an organic iron supplement for you…
MAN: She doesn’t care!
GIRL: (grabbing cigarette from under something) There you are, you little bastard. (looks around) Now, where’s the freakin’ lighter? (hunts)
WOMAN: Annie, smoking depletes your vitamin C, and pregnant women need Bs and folate.
MAN: Leave the girl alone!
GIRL: You got a lighter?
WOMAN: (to GIRL) What?
GIRL: (overlap) Have you got a lighter?
MAN: (overlap) Have you got a lighter?
WOMAN: (exasperated) No, Annie, I don’t have a lighter.
GIRL: Don’t call me that.
WOMAN: You might be better off… (if you stopped smoking.)
MAN: (mimics) You might be better off…
GIRL: (overlap) Matches? Have you got matches?
WOMAN: No.
GIRL: How do you light the stove without matches?
WOMAN: I don’t live here. You do.
GIRL looks around
GIRL: Where did you hide the matches then?
WOMAN sighs
Got any cash? Gotta buy matches – and another packet of fags.
WOMAN gives GIRL cash and tosses herself into a chair as GIRL exits.
GIRL: (off, calls) I’ll get us some beers.
WOMAN begins to protest but gives up
MAN: Mmm. Beer good. (stand behind her, rubs her tummy almost intimately)
WOMAN turns to look at MAN. MAN suddenly steps away.
MAN: Told you.
WOMAN sighs, deflated
MAN: You could take up knitting?
LX Change
MUSIC: GOLDEN SLUMBERS instrumental over scene change
3
On sofa, GIRL lies with her head in MAN’S lap like child at bedtime. MAN sings one verse of Golden Slumbers then narrates Rumpelstiltskin story and plays other characters. GIRL acts like delighted, sleepy child, sometimes mouthing words of story as if she knows it well. GIRL then enacts the Princess role. WOMAN hides behind sofa obscured by MAN. The enactment of the story is a little histrionic.
MUSIC: GOLDEN SLUMBERS instrumental. MAN sings first lines of lullaby after 4 bars of instrumental. Instrumental continues to end of scene.
MAN: (sings) Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,/Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry, /And I will sing a lullaby.
MAN: Once there was a miller who was poor but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, (rough-voiced MILLER) “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.” The king said to the miller, (as KING) “That is an art that pleases me well. If your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her tomorrow to my palace, and I will put her to the test.” And when the girl was brought to him he took her into a room that was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning wheel and a reel, and said, (as KING) “Now set to work, and if by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die.” Thereupon he locked up the room and left her in it alone.
GIRL sits slowly upright, becoming the Princess.
So there sat the poor miller's daughter and for the life of her she could not tell what to do. She had no idea how straw could be spun into gold and she grew more and more frightened until at last she began to weep.
GIRL weeps silently.
But all at once the door opened, (MAN creaks as door) and in came a little man who said…
WOMAN pops up behind sofa, on knees as RUMPELSTILSKIN, surprising GIRL/PRINCESS and MAN/NARRATOR.
WOMAN: (as Rumpel) Good evening, Mistress Miller. Why are you crying so?
GIRL: (as Princess) Alas, I have to
spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it.
WOMAN: (as Rumpel) What will you give me…
MAN: …said the little man…
WOMAN: (as Rumpel) …if I do it for you?
GIRL: (as Princess) My necklace…
MAN: …said the girl.
GIRL takes off necklace and hands it to WOMAN who takes it and bites it to check authenticity, puts in around her neck and waddles on knees to a mime spinning wheel. She does a stylized spinning action and makes whirring noise.
MAN: The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and..
WOMAN: (as Rumpel) Whirr, whirr, whirr.
MAN: …three turns, and the reel was full. Then he put another on, and…
WOMAN: (as Rumpel) Whirr, whirr, whirr. (continues spinning)
MAN: …three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold.
MUSIC stops.
WOMAN freezes as Rumpel. As MAN sings, GIRL lies down, putting her head on his lap again.
MAN: (sings) Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry, /And I will sing a lullaby.
All move to positions for next scene.
MUSIC FADE
LX Change
4
WOMAN knits on stool. GIRL sits up on sofa. MAN stands behind WOMAN, watching her knit and instructing her, as if he reminds her to concentrate when distracted by GIRL. WOMAN is aware of MAN. GIRL is not. GIRL eats chips.
MAN: Knitting pattern for striped baby hat with garter stitch…
GIRL: Where did you get that scar on your leg?
GIRL points at WOMAN’S leg. WOMAN and MAN lean over to look at leg.
WOMAN: Oh, I was four. Some tough kid threw glass at me. It bled and bled. It needed stitches but nobody took me to a doctor. Mum put Mercurochrome on it. Dad bandaged it. I didn’t go to a doctor till I was fifteen. I’d had a hacking cough for a year. Benign neglect. Symptom of the times.
MAN: Using Patons 4 ply, cast on 35 stitches…
GIRL: I bet nobody smacked you in the head with a stubbie.
WOMAN: (stops knitting) What?
GIRL: Me old man was pissed – and pissed off. So he smacks me with a stubbie then shoves me out and slams the door right in me face and I’m standing there with a lump on me head and me nose smack up against the fuckin’ door. I mean he coulda broken me nose if I’d been any closer to the door. So I’m screaming, “Let me in you arsehole. I’m freezin’ my tits off out here!”
MAN: Work to end of row.
WOMAN knits again.
GIRL: You sure you don’t want some chips?
WOMAN: No. And?
GIRL: And nothing. He won’t open it and I’m, like, just standin’ there like a piece of shit, out on the street, screamin’ at this door – this shut door. ‘Cos, like, the door is right on the street, you know. Not like up a driveway or something normal, but just right – on – the – street. I put vinegar on ‘em.
WOMAN: No thanks. I had a tofu burger...
MAN laughs. WOMAN glares at him.
GIRL: Aaagh! How do you eat that shit? I had one. Tasted like soap.
MAN: Using main colour….
GIRL: And it had skinny white wormy things…
WOMAN: Alfalfa sprouts.
GIRL: ...and brown sauce like oniony peanut butter.
MAN: Knit in garter stitch until…
WOMAN: Satay sauce. It’s Indonesian.
GIRL: Indo-crappian. Who puts onions in peanut butter?
MAN: …work measures 9 centimetres … She’s right. Who does?
GIRL: Fuck, these chips are good. So it’s three am in the morning and the lights are goin’ on all over ‘cos I’m like really loud and it’s a “nice” neighbourhood. Well, it’s not but they all think it is ‘cos they – well – cos they all think they’re fuckin’ Christmas cos they got a house in fuckin’ Frankston... I’d kill myself. You know, workin’ and shoppin’ and cookin’ and mowing the lawn and visitin’ the relos and – I’d fuckin’ kill myself… (pause) …but with really good drugs.
_CONTINUES
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