Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Read online

  Sam Steiner

  LEMONS LEMONS

  LEMONS LEMONS

  LEMONS

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Original Production

  Foreword

  Thanks

  Dedication

  Characters

  Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons

  About the Author

  Copyright and Performing Rights Information

  Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons was produced by Walrus and first performed at the Warwick Arts Centre in January 2015. The cast was as follows:

  OLIVER

  Euan Kitson

  BERNADETTE

  Beth Holmes

  Director

  Ed Franklin

  The production subsequently transferred to the National Student Drama Festival in March 2015, where it won three awards, including judges’ commendations for writing and direction. The production visited Latitude Festival in July before a sell-out run at Zoo Southside at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and transferred to Camden People’s Theatre on 24 November 2015.

  Foreword

  It is October 2015. I am sat opposite Sam Steiner in his kitchen in Manchester, attempting (for the fourth, fifth time) to write this; mercifully, it feels like this time I might actually get somewhere. We have spent the last two days taking Lemons to schools in Leeds and Newcastle, and if you’re ever wondering how to begin writing about a thing you’ve spent a year making, I can highly recommend putting it in front of a tumult of Year 9–13s and then letting them grill you for an hour.

  Talking with students as they weighed up their thoughts on the daily word limit at the heart of the play – its effect on the characters’ relationship, its political implications, its function as metaphor – it was impossible not to be reminded of the giddy sense of possibility with which Sam and I first talked about the idea in the summer of 2014. What it’s easy to forget in hindsight is that many of those early conversations were characterised as much by healthy disagreement as by mutual excitement: one of us convinced this would be a play about a couple and how they communicate, the other set on a piece about censorship and oppression.

  It is satisfying, then, to speak with audiences who have found those dual impulses intact; who have accepted the work on its twin terms as both political parable and love story. A year on from the genesis of the project, we’ve found ourselves with a play which unabashedly thrives on its contrasts. First dates rub against fierce polemics, and wittily observed pillow talk jostles for space with heated debate; the writing negotiating tonal shifts in such a way as to persistently ask audiences to engage both their hearts and heads.

  So much of this spirit of contrast is contained in the manner in which the play was made: Sam’s compelling, singular voice responding to a profoundly generous process of collaboration. Beth and Euan have been on board from the very beginning, and Bernadette and Oliver have them – and their brave, bright, tireless commitment to exploring these characters – at the core of their DNA.

  In one sense, it is odd to think of Lemons being set down in print as a published volume, in that it has always felt less like a fixed entity than a living, breathing reflection of the work we do as a company. But more than that, it is ineffably exciting: for Sam, whose writing deserves to be read often and widely, and for Walrus, for whom this book serves as a testament to the warm and winding road which we have travelled so far.

  Ed Franklin, Director

  Thanks

  To our Edinburgh team and everyone along the way: Josie Davies, Oscar Owen, Antonia Salib, Hattie Collins, Shakira, George Attwell Gerhards, Ellice Stevens, Sarah Georgeson, Alexandra Spencer-Jones, everyone at NSDF, Matt Burman, and Laura Elliot.

  To Rebecca Jane Webster, Harry Mallon, Rebecca Myers, Anna Canlan-Shaw, Jiggy Steiner and Josh Steiner for their love, support and inspiration.

  To Beth Holmes and Euan Kitson, whose play this really is.

  To Ed Franklin, who gave me the idea. And most other things.

  S.S.

  For my mum and dad

  Characters

  BERNADETTE

  OLIVER

  Note on Text

  A forward slash (/) indicates interrupted speech.

  They speak slowly and quietly.

  OLIVER. Thirty-four.

  BERNADETTE. Twenty-one.

  Pause.

  Day?

  OLIVER. Yeah. Yours?

  BERNADETTE. Yeah. Tuesday happened again.

  OLIVER. Sorry.

  BERNADETTE. Well, sorf.

  OLIVER. Fuck it.

  Pause.

  Talk?

  BERNADETTE. Eleven. You talk.

  OLIVER. About?

  BERNADETTE shrugs.

  Bernadette.

  BERNADETTE. I know.

  OLIVER. I can’t know you in one hundred and forty.

  Pause.

  BERNADETTE. Try.

  *

  OLIVER. We need to stop meeting here. It’s all a bit morbid.

  BERNADETTE. Well, it’s the only place that I know that you know.

  OLIVER. You’ve never asked where else I know.

  BERNADETTE. Well maybe I just like revisiting the graves of dead cats. Maybe I’m just that kind of girl.

  OLIVER. Maybe we should talk about other places that we could meet.

  Pause.

  I told my friend Eliot / about you

  BERNADETTE. Eliot’s the one that played trumpet on / your latest

  OLIVER. Yeah / and

  BERNADETTE. The one that’s really pro-word limit.

  OLIVER. Yeah. Fascist fuck. Anyway I told him that I’d met a… person… and that she was you, you know, that her name was Bernadette and that she had… like I described you to him, your features and everything… that you’re a lawyer / and stuff.

  BERNADETTE. Training.

  OLIVER. And then he asked me where we met.

  BERNADETTE. You didn’t tell / him that

  OLIVER. That we’d met at a funeral for a cat named Dennis? No.

  BERNADETTE. Or that we…

  OLIVER. Continued to meet at the pet cemetery for… No.

  BERNADETTE. So you haven’t actually told him…

  OLIVER. No. I told him we met in a Greggs.

  Pause.

  I think we should talk about other places that we could meet. Like abattoirs or sausage factories.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah. We should. We should. It’s just…

  OLIVER. Yep.

  BERNADETTE. That I don’t know you outside the pet cemetery, Oliver. I don’t know you when you’re around other people really.

  OLIVER. Only the carcasses of dead animals.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah.

  OLIVER. Right.

  BERNADETTE. And what if you’re like a different guy when you’re not around the…

  OLIVER. The… yeah.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah.

  OLIVER. I think I’m pretty much the same.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah obviously / you are but…

  OLIVER. If a little less on edge.

  BERNADETTE. No obviously you’re the same. But what, okay, what if, when there are more people around and when there are smells and billboards and cinemas and like fastfood restaurants and rock music and people on the streets selling burgers…

  OLIVER. Right.

  BERNADETTE. Sorry.

  OLIVER. Do you not want to be…

  BERNADETTE. No!

  OLIVER. Right.

  BERNADETTE. No no no no it’s just all… out there you know… it’s ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Pause.

  OLIVER.
Ahhhhh?

  Pause.

  I don’t really eat many burgers and I’m quite good at

  shutting out street sellers. Like shutting them down.

  Downtown.

  Pause.

  BERNADETTE. I’m scared.

  OLIVER. Of smells and cinemas and rock music?

  BERNADETTE. Of things getting / in the

  OLIVER. We’ll listen to hip hop. And we’ll buy DVDs.

  BERNADETTE. And get air freshener.

  OLIVER. And get air freshener.

  *

  OLIVER is crouched on the floor. BERNADETTE stands, looking down at him sceptically. OLIVER taps out: Dot dash dash dash. Pause. Dot dot dash. Pause. Dot dash dot dot. Pause. Dot dot. Pause. Dot.

  BERNADETTE looks weary and motions as if to say ‘I have no idea what you just said.’

  OLIVER. Fuck.

  *

  BERNADETTE. Hi.

  OLIVER. Hi. You look nice. High heels.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah, you didn’t tell me where we were going… so I dressed nice. Where are we going?

  OLIVER. We’re going zorbing.

  BERNADETTE. What?

  OLIVER. We’re going to Frankie and Benny’s.

  *

  They are playing Articulate.

  OLIVER. Ready.

  BERNADETTE. Yep. Ready.

  OLIVER. Okay right, right. Band. They’re a band. They were big in the eighties. Absolutely awful, music-wise. Not damp damp damp.

  BERNADETTE. Wet Wet Wet.

  OLIVER. Yep. Okay so these are like, right, like peninsulas but they’ve got water all the way round.

  BERNADETTE. Islands.

  OLIVER. Yep but they’ve never had sex.

  BERNADETTE. Virgin Islands.

  *

  OLIVER. Nineteen.

  BERNADETTE. Two. Hungry?

  OLIVER nods.

  OLIVER. Want?

  BERNADETTE. Lamb.

  OLIVER. Kind?

  BERNADETTE looks at him helplessly.

  Zero?

  BERNADETTE nods.

  Shepherd’s pie?

  BERNADETTE pulls a disgusted expression.

  Stew?

  BERNADETTE shakes her head.

  Rogan josh?

  BERNADETTE shakes her head and begins to mime ‘kebab’.

  Lollipop.

  Pause.

  Lollipop.

  *

  OLIVER. Morning.

  BERNADETTE. Morning.

  OLIVER. Hi.

  BERNADETTE smiles.

  BERNADETTE. Hi.

  OLIVER. You talk in your sleep.

  BERNADETTE. What did I say?

  OLIVER. It was pretty hard to tell. Something about a bad man stealing your pens. Think it was a bad man. Could’ve been Batman.

  Pause.

  BERNADETTE. It was Batman.

  *

  BERNADETTE. Hi.

  OLIVER. Hi.

  BERNADETTE. I like coming home to you.

  *

  OLIVER. Sixteen.

  BERNADETTE. Twenty-four.

  OLIVER. What do?

  BERNADETTE. Bed?

  OLIVER. Half seven.

  BERNADETTE nods.

  Tired?

  BERNADETTE nods.

  BERNADETTE. You?

  OLIVER nods.

  You’re always tired.

  Pause.

  Word-hoarding.

  OLIVER. Badly today.

  BERNADETTE. Too much going on.

  *

  BERNADETTE. When was the last time you saw her?

  OLIVER. I see her every now and then. We go on those marches. Against the hush law.

  BERNADETTE. Bill.

  OLIVER. Bill.

  BERNADETTE. She’s the one that’s really in to it?

  OLIVER. Yeah. She almost ran against them in Basildon.

  BERNADETTE. As an independent?

  OLIVER. Yep.

  BERNADETTE. Why Basildon?

  OLIVER. She thought there was a diverse voter base or something. Lots of undecideds.

  BERNADETTE. But you’re… you’re in to it too. The marches.

  OLIVER. Yeah.

  BERNADETTE. Why did you break up?

  OLIVER. It was just time.

  BERNADETTE. Why was it time?

  OLIVER. I don’t know, Bernadette. A whole host of reasons.

  BERNADETTE. And you see her every now and then?

  OLIVER. Yeah.

  BERNADETTE. Well then I want to see her every now and then. If she’s your ‘anti-establishment buddy’ then I want her to be my like normal buddy.

  OLIVER. Yeah?

  BERNADETTE. Mmmm. But, okay, I want you to tell me all your things.

  OLIVER. What?

  BERNADETTE. All of your and what’s-her-name…

  OLIVER. Julie.

  BERNADETTE. Julie. All of you and Julie’s things.

  OLIVER. Things?

  BERNADETTE. Yeah. Oliver, every couple has their own kind of little… language.

  OLIVER. Right.

  BERNADETTE. Like a dialect.

  OLIVER. Like Canadian French.

  BERNADETTE. Kind of like Canadian French but small-scale I guess.

  OLIVER. Like if there were only two people in Canada and they both used to be French.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah. Like your own set of in-jokes and pet names and little ways of phrasing things that just develop. And I know that I’ve recycled them before and I don’t want that to… Like I’ll be talking in one guy’s, an ex’s, language and making our jokes and saying things in ways that we came up with together and then I’ll turn around and it’ll be this completely different, new man in front of me and he doesn’t get… he thinks I’ve got this really weird way of talking that isn’t funny or endearing or sexy but that’s just weird.

  OLIVER. So he didn’t understand what you were…

  BERNADETTE. No, no. He understood. We were speaking in English. It was just as if English had been… okay imagine you’ve got a cheese grater. One of those cheese graters with the four different sides that grates the four different types of cheese gratings. It’s like each one of those sides is a different relationship and while I was with Stuart I was grating my cheese on one side of the grater and the cheese came out in a really weird shape that we’d, I dunno, designed together. Then when I was with Clint I kept grating my cheese on the same weird side out of habit and Clint would lift up the grater, look at the grated cheese and be like ‘what the fuck?’ like ‘this isn’t the mature cheddar that I know and love.’

  OLIVER. Cheese is language.

  BERNADETTE. Yeah.

  OLIVER. You went out with a Clint?

  BERNADETTE. He was actually lactose intolerant. Not metaphorically… he genuinely struggled with dairy.

  OLIVER. Well I’m really good with dairy. Like I have a very capable stomach.

  BERNADETTE. I want you to tell me all of your things so that I never have to lift the grater up and find someone else’s cheese in our kitchen.

  OLIVER. Metaphorically…?

  BERNADETTE. Yeah.

  OLIVER. Right.

  BERNADETTE. Oliver, please.

  Pause.

  OLIVER. Okay. Errrrm. Well, I can’t remember most of them. But we… okay so we started calling each other… babycakes.

  BERNADETTE. Babycakes?

  OLIVER. It started off ironically. But by the end it just felt almost natural. Don’t look at me.

  BERNADETTE. Babycakes?

  OLIVER. This is horrible.

  BERNADETTE. I just want all the stuff we say to each other to be stuff that we haven’t said a million times before. Or at least like we’re saying it in a new way that is just… I know this is ridiculous.

  OLIVER. It is ridiculous.

  BERNADETTE. I’m sorry.

  OLIVER. You’re being neurotic.

  BERNADETTE. I’m not neurotic.

  OLIVER. I know but you’re being it.

  BERNADETTE. I know.

  OLIVER. I
love you.

  Silence.

  BERNADETTE. Have you said that before?

  OLIVER. Yeah.

  BERNADETTE. To other people?

  OLIVER. Yeah.

  Pause.

  BERNADETTE. Still sounds pretty good, I guess.

  *

  OLIVER. Can’t wait to see you. I love you.

  *

  BERNADETTE. Happy birthday! I love you.

  *

  OLIVER. Merry Christmas! I love you.

  *

  BERNADETTE. Break a leg, I love you.

  *

  OLIVER. Yeah, you sign the lease now, I’ll sign it when I get there. Yeah, I love you.

  *

  BERNADETTE. Yeah, of course I love you. I’m sorry.

  *

  OLIVER. Listen, just listen, I love you. Why wouldn’t they?

  *

  BERNADETTE. I love you, okay? I love you. But I need to focus right now. I’ve left the dishes.

  *

  OLIVER. I love you.

  *

  BERNADETTE. I love you.

  *

  OLIVER. Ninety-eight.

  BERNADETTE. Thirteen. Good luck. Got your speech?

  OLIVER nods.

  Lovou.

  OLIVER nods.

  Lovou.

  OLIVER. Lovou.

  *

  OLIVER. I saw Julie today.

  BERNADETTE. Oh yeah? What do you want for dinner?

  OLIVER. I don’t mind.

  BERNADETTE. I want burgers.

  OLIVER. Burgers are fine.

  BERNADETTE. Big old beef burgers with gravy and ketchup.

  OLIVER. She’s put a bit of weight on.

  BERNADETTE. Julie? I thought she went on Atkins.

  OLIVER. Didn’t work.

  Silence.

  But I was talking to her about the stuff I’ve been doing recently, playing with texture and instrumentation and stuff. Polyphony. And she was saying that she knows this lyricist who’s pretty much the next big / thing. And she…

  BERNADETTE. You know when I was little I didn’t think songs had words in them.

  OLIVER. Bernadette, I was right in the middle of a story.

  BERNADETTE. Sorry. Carry on.

  OLIVER. I hate it when you do that.

  BERNADETTE. I was enjoying it. Carry on.

  OLIVER. I can literally see you drifting / off

  BERNADETTE. I was listening. Julie’s clever and loves carbohydrates.

  OLIVER. There’s always this moment with you when something I say makes you go ‘oh yeah, that sounds a lot like my life’ and / then you’re off thinking about…