Synopsis:
An issue for this play is political relevance and how to date it. It jumps between a recent past where a final year-group of elite Swiss boarding students reacts to a new student in their midst, and a not-too-distant future where some of the ex-students are now engaged in adult political life. The narrative of this adult world requires a non-specific middle-eastern conflict as a current event.
In this version, I have given the birth-year of the students as 1990, making them roughly 25 yrs old in 2015, but these dates can be changed depending on when the play is performed (as long as it’s tenable that a foreign conflict in an oil-rich country could be imagined as an ongoing event at the later date- probably depressingly easy to do whenever it might be performed).
At the start the play is framed by a moment of violence in this foreign country, where Florence (Flo) and Anton (two former school-friends, now adults) are discovered as hostages, bound and gagged on a freezing hill-side at night. Florence is presently taken away- a shot is heard.
From here time jumps back 5 or 6 years to Anton’s latter school-days, with Anton as occasional narrator. A new student (Valentine) appears, handsome, introverted and mysterious. Anton falls for him. It transpires that he is from a nearby village, prodigiously talented, but socially alien.
Meanwhile their teacher, Mme Lestrade, offers special coaching to her two star pupils, Eugenie and Florence (hitherto best friends), for the competition to gain entry to the ‘Geneva summer school’- an elite spawning ground for young political hopefuls and future business stars. Florence (scrupulously conscientious) rejects the help, as it’s biased towards the girls (Lestrade is a closet feminist).
As the play jumps episodically forward, we meet Petra, a political mover and shaker, looking to recruit star graduates of the Geneva summer school, to breathe youth and gender-parity into her party. We learn that Eugenie is their prime candidate, now engaged to an old school-friend, Marcus, a rising corporate star, with another old friend, Marta, working as Eugenie’s PA. Eugenie is invited to speak at the party’s conference as a young ‘star turn’.
Meanwhile, back in the past, at school, Valentine’s presence makes waves. Eva, a callous, bored, good-time girl has likewise fallen for him; Florence is also secretly developing feelings for him and Marcus (who fancies Eva) has jealously taken against him.
On a weekend Anton breaks out of school to visit Valentine’s village, hoping to meet him. Instead he bumps into Pascal- a mentally impaired young boy. It soon transpires that this boy is Valentine’s brother, and Anton inveigles his way back to their down-at-heel house. They live alone, cared for by their older sister, Katrin, their parents apparently dead. Valentine appears, is cold towards Anton, who leaves. Later his coldness is revealed as shame and chippiness about his poverty and his mentally disabled brother. He imagines that Anton will spread this information amongst his class-mates, in order to mock him.
Meanwhile the play jumps forward to find Eugenie and Marcus living in comparative luxury. Marcus’s company makes its money by illegally exploiting the oil prices in the war-zone where Anton and Florence have been taken hostage (a business practise which Eugenie’s political masters are in cahoots with). We find out that Florence (and Anton) were aid-working, and that Florence has been killed. Marcus and Eugenie are about to see their old school friend, Sofia, dancing at the ballet. Later they are to be interviewed about Florence by a journalist, Leoni. Marcus, now drunk and boorish, is particularly unwilling to talk about her.
Back in time, at school, Florence likewise watches Sofia dance (something which Sofia finds unnerving and clingy), and inadvertently betrays her feelings about Valentine to her. Later Sofia divulges Florence’s feelings to Marcus, and uses him as a means of stopping Florence watching her dance. Marcus abuses his role by trying to sexually assault Sofia.
In adult life, Eva, Sofia and Marta are all also interviewed by Leoni about Florence. They are all unwilling to talk, all seemingly hiding secret guilt and feigning a lack of knowledge about her. As an adult Eva has lost her chutzpah, and is now mother to a little girl called Valentina.
At school, Eva’s cronies (Rosa and Lottie) persuade Valentine (when he finds out that Anton has not divulged his impoverished circumstances to anyone) to turn his house into a weekend party venue (such is their boredom from being incarcerated at their school). Briefly believing that he is not the figure of contempt he thought himself to be, he agrees to it.
At this party, Katrin (having revealed her father’s suicide, and that his volatile, ‘death-wish’ personality is seemingly shared by Valentine) makes a move on Anton (which disturbs him). Florence and Valentine tentatively bond (she learns of his naïve wish to travel the world and do good). Eva (seeing Flo and Valentine together) realises with drunken bitterness that Valentine doesn’t want her, and goes off with Marcus.
Some weeks later, in an awkward interview with Lestrade, it is revealed that Eva is pregnant, having been taken advantage of when very drunk. When asked who the father is Eva impulsively says that it’s Valentine.
Valentine is thrown out of the school. In torment he takes Pascal down to a nearby lake (where normally Pascal is forbidden from going). Here, whilst a storm begins to rage, he fills his pockets with stones and instructs Pascal to do the same. Valentine is drowned, but Pascal remains on the shore, pathetically calling for him.
Later Lestrade tells the class the results of the Geneva summer school entry competition. Valentine would have won, but in his absence the places are awarded to Eugenie and Flo. Flo rejects her place, voicing her wish to carry out Valentine’s plans to do good, and publically accusing Marcus of being responsible for Eva’s pregnancy, calling him a coward. Lestrade closes down the fight, but now the reasons for all their adult reticence before Leoni’s questions are clear: they have all been party to Eva’s lie, thus they were all complicit in Valentine’s death, and in their ‘closed-ranks’ response to it they were all morally weaker than Florence- ultimately leading to her to reject career success in favour of a spiritual, vocational quest (which in turn killed her). Each one has guilt: Sofia rejected Florence; Eva lied about who got her pregnant (as a punishment for Valentine rejecting her), and so destroyed Florence and Valentine’s chance of being with each other; Marcus is a sexual predator who has been protected by Eugenie through her agreeing to marry someone she knows to be cowardly and flawed in return for wealth and status, and Marta has been busy engineering this tarnished career trajectory.
Finally the play jumps forward a last time. It is revealed that Anton survived the hostage taking, and that his narration throughout has in fact been a final interview with Leoni- the only one where the truth has been tol
From here we see Eugenie about to take the stand during her party leader’s conference key-note speech. As she nervously prepares with Marta it becomes clear that Eugenie is going to spill the beans - about Marcus’ company’s malpractice, her party’s double-dealing, Marcus’s past, their shared mistreatment of Valentine and Florence, everything - and in so doing lose her job and her fiancé. As she starts to speak an old school photo is projected, cross-fading to an image of her and Florence, much younger and happy, now leaping up from where they were sitting and cavorting about while lights and image fade.
An issue for this play is political relevance and how to date it. It jumps between a recent past where a final year-group of elite Swiss boarding students reacts to a new student in their midst, and a not-too-distant future where some of the ex-students are now engaged in adult political life. The narrative of this adult world requires a non-specific middle-eastern conflict as a current event.
In this version, I have given the birth-year of the students as 1990, making them roughly 25 yrs old in 2015, but these dates can be changed depending on when the play is performed (as long as it’s tenable that a foreign conflict in an oil-rich country could be imagined as an ongoing event at the later date- probably depressingly easy to do whenever it might be performed).
At the start the play is framed by a moment of violence in this foreign country, where Florence (Flo) and Anton (two former school-friends, now adults) are discovered as hostages, bound and gagged on a freezing hill-side at night. Florence is presently taken away- a shot is heard.
From here time jumps back 5 or 6 years to Anton’s latter school-days, with Anton as occasional narrator. A new student (Valentine) appears, handsome, introverted and mysterious. Anton falls for him. It transpires that he is from a nearby village, prodigiously talented, but socially alien.
Meanwhile their teacher, Mme Lestrade, offers special coaching to her two star pupils, Eugenie and Florence (hitherto best friends), for the competition to gain entry to the ‘Geneva summer school’- an elite spawning ground for young political hopefuls and future business stars. Florence (scrupulously conscientious) rejects the help, as it’s biased towards the girls (Lestrade is a closet feminist).
As the play jumps episodically forward, we meet Petra, a political mover and shaker, looking to recruit star graduates of the Geneva summer school, to breathe youth and gender-parity into her party. We learn that Eugenie is their prime candidate, now engaged to an old school-friend, Marcus, a rising corporate star, with another old friend, Marta, working as Eugenie’s PA. Eugenie is invited to speak at the party’s conference as a young ‘star turn’.
Meanwhile, back in the past, at school, Valentine’s presence makes waves. Eva, a callous, bored, good-time girl has likewise fallen for him; Florence is also secretly developing feelings for him and Marcus (who fancies Eva) has jealously taken against him.
On a weekend Anton breaks out of school to visit Valentine’s village, hoping to meet him. Instead he bumps into Pascal- a mentally impaired young boy. It soon transpires that this boy is Valentine’s brother, and Anton inveigles his way back to their down-at-heel house. They live alone, cared for by their older sister, Katrin, their parents apparently dead. Valentine appears, is cold towards Anton, who leaves. Later his coldness is revealed as shame and chippiness about his poverty and his mentally disabled brother. He imagines that Anton will spread this information amongst his class-mates, in order to mock him.
Meanwhile the play jumps forward to find Eugenie and Marcus living in comparative luxury. Marcus’s company makes its money by illegally exploiting the oil prices in the war-zone where Anton and Florence have been taken hostage (a business practise which Eugenie’s political masters are in cahoots with). We find out that Florence (and Anton) were aid-working, and that Florence has been killed. Marcus and Eugenie are about to see their old school friend, Sofia, dancing at the ballet. Later they are to be interviewed about Florence by a journalist, Leoni. Marcus, now drunk and boorish, is particularly unwilling to talk about her.
Back in time, at school, Florence likewise watches Sofia dance (something which Sofia finds unnerving and clingy), and inadvertently betrays her feelings about Valentine to her. Later Sofia divulges Florence’s feelings to Marcus, and uses him as a means of stopping Florence watching her dance. Marcus abuses his role by trying to sexually assault Sofia.
In adult life, Eva, Sofia and Marta are all also interviewed by Leoni about Florence. They are all unwilling to talk, all seemingly hiding secret guilt and feigning a lack of knowledge about her. As an adult Eva has lost her chutzpah, and is now mother to a little girl called Valentina.
At school, Eva’s cronies (Rosa and Lottie) persuade Valentine (when he finds out that Anton has not divulged his impoverished circumstances to anyone) to turn his house into a weekend party venue (such is their boredom from being incarcerated at their school). Briefly believing that he is not the figure of contempt he thought himself to be, he agrees to it.
At this party, Katrin (having revealed her father’s suicide, and that his volatile, ‘death-wish’ personality is seemingly shared by Valentine) makes a move on Anton (which disturbs him). Florence and Valentine tentatively bond (she learns of his naïve wish to travel the world and do good). Eva (seeing Flo and Valentine together) realises with drunken bitterness that Valentine doesn’t want her, and goes off with Marcus.
Some weeks later, in an awkward interview with Lestrade, it is revealed that Eva is pregnant, having been taken advantage of when very drunk. When asked who the father is Eva impulsively says that it’s Valentine.
Valentine is thrown out of the school. In torment he takes Pascal down to a nearby lake (where normally Pascal is forbidden from going). Here, whilst a storm begins to rage, he fills his pockets with stones and instructs Pascal to do the same. Valentine is drowned, but Pascal remains on the shore, pathetically calling for him.
Later Lestrade tells the class the results of the Geneva summer school entry competition. Valentine would have won, but in his absence the places are awarded to Eugenie and Flo. Flo rejects her place, voicing her wish to carry out Valentine’s plans to do good, and publically accusing Marcus of being responsible for Eva’s pregnancy, calling him a coward. Lestrade closes down the fight, but now the reasons for all their adult reticence before Leoni’s questions are clear: they have all been party to Eva’s lie, thus they were all complicit in Valentine’s death, and in their ‘closed-ranks’ response to it they were all morally weaker than Florence- ultimately leading to her to reject career success in favour of a spiritual, vocational quest (which in turn killed her). Each one has guilt: Sofia rejected Florence; Eva lied about who got her pregnant (as a punishment for Valentine rejecting her), and so destroyed Florence and Valentine’s chance of being with each other; Marcus is a sexual predator who has been protected by Eugenie through her agreeing to marry someone she knows to be cowardly and flawed in return for wealth and status, and Marta has been busy engineering this tarnished career trajectory.
Finally the play jumps forward a last time. It is revealed that Anton survived the hostage taking, and that his narration throughout has in fact been a final interview with Leoni- the only one where the truth has been tol
From here we see Eugenie about to take the stand during her party leader’s conference key-note speech. As she nervously prepares with Marta it becomes clear that Eugenie is going to spill the beans - about Marcus’ company’s malpractice, her party’s double-dealing, Marcus’s past, their shared mistreatment of Valentine and Florence, everything - and in so doing lose her job and her fiancé. As she starts to speak an old school photo is projected, cross-fading to an image of her and Florence, much younger and happy, now leaping up from where they were sitting and cavorting about while lights and image fade.
Notes:
Film:
In this play film is useful but not necessary. I have used projection for some scene idents, and also a school photograph which I used as means of identifying key characters, and from which later I cross-faded to a replica photograph of younger versions of the students. This younger version obviously required finding young students whose physical casting approximated to their older counterparts. However, in all, you could probably get away without any projection, if need be using ‘Brechtian’ placard-signs for any scene idents deemed necessary, and finishing the play with a blackout on Eugenie’s last line.
Set:
I used a stepped set of rostra to one side of the stage (four or five wide steps), which served as the mountain at the top of the play and then as a way of arranging the class group, both as if in a lecture theatre when being taught, and for their school photograph set-up (amongst other locations). On the other side generic stage furniture (kitchen tables, sofas, drinks cabinet, dressing room mirror etc) could come and go as necessary. The play is reasonably LX heavy. In particular a ‘changing’ lighting state is required (along with repeating underscore theme) to transform the students into their adult versions (and sometimes back again).
Although this play looks at moral choices and inhabits the hot-house atmosphere of the over-entitled and over-pressured, it is written with quite a light touch. It requires the actors to project the fluency and knowing ease of the pampered classes and to underplay as much as the space will allow.
Film:
In this play film is useful but not necessary. I have used projection for some scene idents, and also a school photograph which I used as means of identifying key characters, and from which later I cross-faded to a replica photograph of younger versions of the students. This younger version obviously required finding young students whose physical casting approximated to their older counterparts. However, in all, you could probably get away without any projection, if need be using ‘Brechtian’ placard-signs for any scene idents deemed necessary, and finishing the play with a blackout on Eugenie’s last line.
Set:
I used a stepped set of rostra to one side of the stage (four or five wide steps), which served as the mountain at the top of the play and then as a way of arranging the class group, both as if in a lecture theatre when being taught, and for their school photograph set-up (amongst other locations). On the other side generic stage furniture (kitchen tables, sofas, drinks cabinet, dressing room mirror etc) could come and go as necessary. The play is reasonably LX heavy. In particular a ‘changing’ lighting state is required (along with repeating underscore theme) to transform the students into their adult versions (and sometimes back again).
Although this play looks at moral choices and inhabits the hot-house atmosphere of the over-entitled and over-pressured, it is written with quite a light touch. It requires the actors to project the fluency and knowing ease of the pampered classes and to underplay as much as the space will allow.
