Flies. Oliver Lansley
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FLIES
Oliver Lansley
FLIES
OBERON BOOKS
LONDON
First published in 2011 by Oberon Books Ltd
Electronic edition published in 2012
Oberon Books Ltd
521 Caledonian Road, London N7 9RH
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7607 3637 / Fax: +44 (0) 20 7607 3629
e-mail: [email protected]
Copyright © Oliver Lansley 2011
Oliver Lansley is hereby identified as author of this play in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to Curtis Brown Group Ltd. Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London, SW1Y 4SP, United Kingdom ([email protected]). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN: 978-1-84943-214-6
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84943-592-5
Cover design by Zoe Squire
Printed, bound and converted in Great Britain by CPI Group
(UK) Ltd., Croydon, CR0 4YY.
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Contents
Foreword
BY DIRECTOR EMMA EARLE
Flies is an absurdist tale of one man’s struggle to overcome his acute irrational fear and the way that fear manifests itself, takes hold and governs.
After an unfortunate incident on a flight, Dennis must undergo six weeks of therapy to address his issues. Fragments of the memories and experiences that have shaped his fear provide the backbone of the play as we yo-yo back and forth in time, from school trips to a petting zoo, to working as a dental assistant. But will Dennis conquer his fear before The Fly – a charming, whisky drinking maverick with a thoroughly nasty streak – takes up permanent residence in his consciousness? Or will he cave in and let the fear beat him? Dennis’ obsessive-compulsive behaviour as he endeavours to create a world without flies is both comical and tragic; indeed we feel as though we are literally in a front-row seat inside his brain, witnessing his nightmares and accompanying him in his flights of fantasy.
We meet a variety of characters from his life – ex-girlfriends, ex-employers, ex-teachers…you get the picture. And throughout the play we are invited to question the reliability of the witness. Voices, faces and places take on a warped, kaleidoscopic quality – all of them projections from Dennis’ consciousness, some more malevolent than others.
This is Pins and Needles’ second major collaboration with Oliver Lansley following Ernest and the Pale Moon. With an exciting live soundtrack from experimental, Bristol-based musician Kid Carpet, our production is a fusion of theatre, stand-up comedy and a gig.
Oliver’s play ends with a startling metamorphosis: Dennis’ ultimate act of defiance and release, in which the real world collides with the surreal.
Introduction
BY OLIVER LANSLEY
Flies was an interesting proposition for me. The director Emma, with whom I’ve collaborated many times, came to me with a title ‘Flies’, a character name, Dennis, and dates for a proposed run of this show that didn’t even exist yet!
It’s an interesting way to start on a project but Emma knows I am always intrigued by a challenge and when she said she wanted to create something that was a cross between Metamorphosis and Jaws I was hooked!
It’s hard to say much about the piece itself as I don’t think it’s the sort of play that benefits from the reader being given too much information. It’s a play to be explored rather than explained.
What I did know was that I wanted to replicate the fractured, disjointed workings of Dennis’ brain in telling his story. Creating literally a ‘web’ of information that all somehow spirals around a centre point (the fly in the middle of that web).
It jumps around in time and space and reality and is in many senses a stream of consciousness. This was very much reflected in the way that I wanted to write it. Allowing information to pour out randomly, some obviously relevant, some more obscure, like fragments torn out at random from a well-worn diary.
As for the fly, the very first words that I wrote for the whole play were – ‘I took a shit on your food’ – this seemed to set out quite a clear path to me as to who this character was!
What is real, what is not and how do we know the difference? Flies is an odd little play, but then Dennis is an odd little man…
Flies by Oliver Lansley was first performed on 4th October 2011 at the Tobacco Factory’s Brewery Theatre, Bristol.
Produced by Pins and Needles Productions.
Original cast:
DENNIS, Oliver Hollis
THE FLY and other roles, Paul Mundell
Live music performed by Kid Carpet
Written by Oliver Lansley
Director, Emma Earle
Design, Zoe Squire
Lighting Design, Anna Barrett
Composer, Kid Carpet
Animator, Becca Rose
Costume Supervisor, Bianca Ward
Assistant Producer, Lee Rayner
Stage