Rock 'n' Roll. Tom Stoppard
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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
ACT ONE
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