An imaginary performance for one female actor.
Two characters: a young woman in jeans and Lady Denham.
Extras: Fifteen drummers and two peacocks.
Act 1
The curtains are still closed. It is dark.
Is it night, perhaps?
From the right a buzzing sound. A humming.
Softly heartbeats penetrate the ear. Beats. Barely audible.
Dost thou hear it?
And then.
Light.
Too much.
Hurts the eyes.
A young woman comes up and stands in front of the curtain.
Jeans, sneakers, a hoodie.
‘Before we begin, I would just like to say something.
I’m not in the play. Not that they don’t want me to be.
Or because I’m too busy. If I wanted to, I could.
It’s not because I can’t act either.
I just wanted to say… that all the noise that you will hear, the noise that comes out of the speakers…
I made that sound.
I’m saying this because most people who do sound have a penis.
I’m not going to take my clothes off now to prove that I haven’t got one because then I would be giving a performance here and, as I have already said, I’m not in the play.
And secondly I’m saying this because…
Mostly you don’t see the people who do the sound.
They sit there somewhere in the dark.
But that’s fine. Mostly that’s what they want to do.
They want to stay invisible.
But not me.
That’s why.
So all the sound you will hear is mine. And this is my face.
And now you will have to excuse me because I have to press a button behind there.’
The young woman goes off. The curtain opens.
Emptiness.
A black speaker. White light.
Two peacocks. They are scraping their beaks across the floor and pecking at something that only they can see.
A voice is heard.
‘The word “town” means nothing more than “a large place with a centre and adjoining built-up area, divided up into streets and districts.”
But here there is nothing more built-up to be found.
What was once a town is now a wasteland.
Bare like the trees in the winter.
Sallow like an illness.
Grey like the sky without sun.
Here grows no sprig.
The earth has gouged itself open.
From her pores rises a vapour.
All that scratch here now are peacocks.
They thrive well on desolate land.
Their brown feathers disappear in the greyness of the landscape.
Now and then a male fans out his all-seeing train.
It is a strange sight.
But in all ugliness is hidden beauty. Fortunately.
The houses have been thrown in a heap.
“They were already in a bad state anyway,” they said.
The truth is that there were no more tradesmen.
But you can’t say that out loud.
I saved my house from the rubble.
The walls were wailing so.
The windows were howling.
The floors bemoaning.
“Come, come we will go. Thou and I.
Shall we go to some other place?
Shalt thou follow me or I thee?”’
The white light slowly changes to light yellow, yellow, yellower.
We forge our way through the mire and leave the town.
Under the Wicker we can rest.
From here we must cross five weirs.
Before, there stood pine trees along the road.
Before, water ran through here.
Before is not that long ago.
We continue our journey along the Attercliff Common and there where Meadowhall shopping centre once was.
From here we can go further to Rotherdam but we go left.
The yellow light slowly changes to light green, green, greener.
Here.
On the hill.
Here I will begin again.
Here I will set myself down.
Here you have a horizon.
No one ever comes here.
From here the rivers flow downstream.
Rivers are easy to recognize. But not hills.
To know where the hills lie, you have to know the rivers.
Nature rages harder here.
The sort of wind you cannot shelter from.
Your only choice is its direction of ambush.
It churns you inside out.
Here you can shout without anyone hearing you.
When does a person actually scream now?
Except inwardly I mean, when?
There is a reddening of the green light.
Nature screeches out!
King Lear is on the move again and is raging.
His red cloak is sodden. From the rain and haste and because he stumbled and fell in a puddle.
‘Blow, wind, and do your worst! Roar! Blow!
Rain gush, fire spew!
Spew out a wall of fire!
Crush all that here still stands. Strangle all vestige of life-giving seed.’
An ominous echo of thunder.
The gods are quarrelsome and are flexing their muscles.
Burning. Burning. Burning.
(Smoke blows in from left and right. Short and aggressive furls.)
The town below is burning.
Smoking itself out with sulphurous thoughts.
When the rain comes, it brings more vapour.
Then the earth hisses like a hot baking tray.
There are now many reasons to find for crying.
But no, there will be no tears.
I keep still.
You won’t hear me complain.
Bright red light. Clouds of smoke dance in the light.
As the fog clears, the voice continues.
The colour of the light slowly changes from red to white.
Now I live on my hill. Chained to myself.
Elbows leant on knees.
A chin leant in the palms of hands.
I can sit like this for hours.
Looking at the table.
At the chair on which I sit.
At the bed in the corner.
At the wooden wall.
The table is a chair.
The chair a table.
The bed a heater.
A place to be with someone.
But not now.
Things could be different to this.
Everything could always be different.
The table a chair.
The chair a table.
If you are alone a lot you start talking to yourself.
But how do you do different if you are used to not doing different?
That constant eking out of your own daily existence.
How do you do different when everyone around you is doing the same?
When I had tarried on my hill for two hundred and forty three days.
When I had tired of looking out over the horizon and no more new thoughts came. When I had nothing more to say to myself and I had sung every song I could remember seventeen times, I decided to go down and return to the inner city.
Darkness
The curtains close
Intermezzo
Beer-i-fy oneself: the drinking of beer to feel good.
Example: ‘During a busy week at work I beerify myself.’
En-thus-i-fy: exaggerated enthusiasm on seeing someone again.
Example: ‘I enthusify when I see my brother again.’
Leg-gi-ness: the abundance of bare legs.
Example: ‘On Saturday evenings there is a lot of legginess in this bar’.
Who-ri-fy oneself: to dress or behave like a whore.
Example: ‘On Saturday evenings she whorifies herself.’
Un-fos-sil-ly: synonym for ‘forever young’.
Example: ‘Despite her age she comes across as really unfossilly.’
Ov-er-cup-ca-ked: to feel tired from too much cake, tea and small talk.
Example: ‘After her birthday party I went home overcupcaked.’
Out-mea-dow: to overdose on shopping.
Example: ‘On Saturday evening I stayed at home. I was too meadowed out.’
But-ism: to cause damage by bringing things into question too much.
Example: ‘Due to the client’s butism the project was cancelled.’
Scre-wi-fy: to contribute to the ruination of.
Example: ‘The screwified record player was by the rubbish.’
Rig-ma-rol-ly: synonym for vague, unclear, incoherent.
Example: ‘The plans for building the town were too rigmarolly.’
Re-house-ism: to feel unwell as a result of moving house.
Example: ‘Since the move I have been taking medication for rehouseism.’
In-ter-ni-fy: the internal processing of a traumatic experience.
Example: ‘She has internified the events of last summer.’
Un-glo-bal-ous: incalculable.
Example: ‘The consequences were unglobalous.’
Mir-ror-ing: reflect on something, consider.
Example: ‘The party leadership is mirroring the possible options.’
Ven-ti-la-tion-ous: reference to something that brings relief.
Example: ‘The news that they could return home was ventilationous.’
Grey-if-i-ca-tion: the slow greying of things.
Example: ‘The greyification of the facades made the town centre look desolate.’
Re-sign-ed-ness: comforting feeling that occurs when one has let go of something or someone.
Example: ‘The demolition of the house brought about resignedness within the family.’
Di-ver-gi-fy: the search for new avenues.
Example: ‘Now we have lost our house, we are divergifying’.
Ho-ri-zon-ous: The presence of a horizon, as far as the eye can see.
Example: ‘The landscape is very horizonous.’
Du-al-iz-a-tion: the slow evolution from one to two.
Example: ‘From the dualization of the shoots, it appears that the flowers are not dead.’
Act 2
Lady Denham appears looking stylish in an orange silk suit and gown.
A peacock broach pinned to the breast pocket. White blouse. Cleavage.
High-heeled shoes. Reddish-brown hair, pinned up.
A slight colour on the cheeks as a sign of good health.
‘Hello. I am Margaret, Margaret Brook.
Lady Denham, after my husband Sir John Denham. No? Famous English poet?
No.
I was poisoned. On 7 January 1667.
Hot chocolate.
There is a portrait of me hanging in the Graves Gallery in Sheffield, painted by Peter Lely…
Not seen it?
Not a single portrait ever painted of me depicts me as I really am.
That’s not really what portrait art is all about.
It’s about visibility.
There is a portrait of me. I did exist.
That one Peter did isn’t too bad. Just my nose…
I was the king’s lover. James II. I was.
You can be forgiven for not being aware of this.
How could you know…
On his list of lovers I am invariably at the bottom.
I am a footnote in the history of England.
I was engaged at the court to give love and to receive love.
That the king would fall for my youthful beauty had been predicted.
I paid the price for my craft.
Anyone who entices a virgin into the cave of a lustful bear must accept that she will intoxicate him.
These are the rules of the game.
I had ambitions beyond the position of bed chamber maiden.
In higher circles beauty and intellect are not treated on the same footing.
That is the reason why I was matched with Sir John Denham.
He was old enough to be my father.
But it is true, I was less convincing in my role as a nurse.
Burlington House kept me prisoner.
Tables, chairs, a bed.
The boredom.
That clamminess.
Young women should not look after old men.
Unless it is their father. Or they are being paid for it.
I was chained to the house without any say in the matter and having seen nothing of the world.
Books cannot comfort forever.
James said that he recognized his younger self in me.
That spirit of adventure.
And there was I, thinking that this was something that all men said to win a woman’s heart.
If I were to compare James with a creature, I would say… a peacock.
Among peacocks the males are the most beautiful.
If a female shows an interest, the cock spreads out his feathers and turns his back to her so that she has to walk around him to see his feathers. This ritual is repeated a few times. After that the hen lies down in front of the cock, he folds up his tail feathers and mates with her. And he does this with two to five females.
Peacocks are not monogamous.
One cannot demand fidelity. A marriage offers a structure to bring up children in. No more. In that subtle imprisonment of fidelity I could not be happy.
I did not want life to be compromised.
A person is the way they are. And someone different is different. And the reality of the one has really nothing to do with that of the other.
It is like speaking a foreign language.
Anyone who speaks just one language is more limited. Multilingualism is enriching. Such wisdom should be common knowledge. But that is not the case.
It is of course better to know less.
Knowing too much will not necessarily make you happier.
There are advantages to living on an island.
But a loving heart knows no bounds.
And love that grows too quickly also quickly runs to seed.
When Hera, the goddess of marriage, found out that Zeus had another lover, she turned his beloved into a cow, imprisoned her in a cave and had her guarded by Argus, her most trusted servant, a giant with 100 eyes. Zeus takes pity on Io and sends Hermes to release her. All day and all night Hermes tells Argus stories. Until his 100 eyes grow heavy with sleep. Then Hermes chops off his head and releases Io. On hearing what has happened, Hera is overcome with grief.
To honour Argus she gives his eyes to her favourite creature: the peacock.
Imagine if what is described as deception is not deception.
But merely the reproach of a wounded vanity.
People are themselves responsible for what befalls them. They themselves construct the events to come. The hand of fate does not fall at random.
My wish was clear. I wanted a public existence. I wanted a portrait.
Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York, reduced to second-class status in her own court, has only herself to blame.
Those who lose themselves in feelings of revenge are sealing their own death.
Crime is built on egotism.
Fidelity is also a form of egotism, a kind of vanity, just as the majority of human needs in life.
What does a person actually do with their desires?
James, John and Anne. They are all three complicit. And I was the cause of their lost self-esteem. The one lost themselves in love, the other in grief, the third in anger. The first set events in motion, the second let it happen, the third must live with blood on their hands.
They are all three complicit.
In England the public is private as long as no one talks about it.
Not everything needs to be said. The world can learn lessons from this.
It was known that James had extramarital relations.
He had children by different women.
In the night of 7 January 1667 Anne Hyde came to Burlington House. She wanted to talk. James had told her things. I do not understand why someone can speak so candidly about an extramarital liaison, knowing that in doing so he is putting his lover’s life in peril.
Unless… unless his love was becoming a danger for himself.
And given that James was a successful statesman, in view of his position as Duke of York, he trampled everything in his path. Or perhaps that was exactly why he was a successful statesman; because he trampled everything in his path.
That was what I found so attractive in him, that uncompromising nature.
He did have gentle hands though. As if he were afraid that everything he touched would break.
That night I drank my own death. I allowed myself that dignity.
But you will not find this information in the chronicles.
Lady Denham goes off.
Act 3
The curtains open. On the stage there is a tower of industrial materials, among which are everyday objects, rubbish wrapped together with tape.
A yellowish beam of light from the right.
A cracking sound.
A voice is heard.
Descending from the hill my eye surveys
how smoke amongst the wanton valleys strays.
There the city lies.
Like a cadaver beneath a hill doth rise.
Wealth and business and the once bustling crowd,
seems at this distance but a dark cloud.
Bestows upon the wanderer a friendly shoulder.
Do not distract him from his intentions.
He tries to understand everything that’s lost.
Followed by a foul fiend.
A lowly breathing on his neck.
No laughter with disease.
Everything breaks like thunderclap.
Abandoned buildings.
Fossils of human activity.
It’s a strange kind of poetry,
unmatched in its epic form.
The end is glimmering.
But now…
Here come the burning butter birds
flying over from the mainland.
Tyrannus brought them back.
Hard hearts hurt.
Imprisoned by spring heeled Jack.
The warriors arrived
to save the increase
of hope and generosity.
There’s a hole in the market.
Fill it up with spice.
We should be able to turn the buildings inside out.
We strip the facades.
And fix the dents.
The incubation period is over.
Cause one who lives in this apocalyptic Valhalla resembles it.
Like limping,
Stumbling,
Falling,
Parting
from deep anger, shame and fear,
Running
for what’s passed, and for what’s too near.
It rumbles.
It mumbles.
It crumbles in me.
A grumbling, growling cramp
mmmm
There are the beats
Fifteen drummers in colourful regalia. Just like peacocks.
They play invisible drums with intense concentration.
Sunny light.
Dear citizens of Sheffield,
society is all but rude,
to this delicious solitude.
With an abundance of kindness
and attitude
there are several ways to run.
Why not go back to what’s undone?
How sore it is, to shed new light.
Designing a brave place, and then as brave a mind.
It’s a dangerous gap
between a wish and a thought so clean.
The choices are complex.
The facts more extreme.
Sit down my Lord,
you foolish fool.
Your whispers reach no ear.
We’re ragged now.
We’re serene.
Your gossip spreads the fear.
Don’t try to find the narrative here.
The temptation is in our veins.
Oh sweet bliss of desire
for luxury and wealth.
Uproot this virus.
Attune ears to a new frequency.
Dip in the stream.
It’s the pleasant chaos that we esteem.
We break into the court.
We’re stealing the permission.
What to do with the submission
that squatting the past is the only option.
Put your home up for adoption.
There’s no need for a museum.
Heat up the town with steaming boilers.
We’re ready for the Mediterranean flame.
Wake up, sleepwalkers!
The afterglow is near.
The cupcake hype is over.
The pressure is severe.
We’ve seen the bottom.
We survived the flood.
While trying to identify
where the future lies,
we sing the lines –
do or die.
So Sheffield,
If we moor our boat in your trenches
would you offer us a home?
We visit the world and its flying towers.
Bring home what we’ve seen, and make this city ours.
Freeze
Silence
Darkness
Translated from Dutch by Suzie Holdsworth
Suzie Holdsworth completed her undergraduate studies in Modern Languages in the UK. She then spent ten years living and working in the Netherlands, gaining experience translating a variety of text genres, including the literary, from Dutch into English. Since then she has been awarded an MA in Translation Studies (2009) by the University of Sheffield and is currently studying for a PhD, also at the University of Sheffield.
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