1 - Comedies of Menace

Summary

NEGOTIATIONS AND EVICTIONS

The curtain goes up on an untidy room cluttered with boxes, suitcases, electrical appliances and bits and pieces of DIY hardware. One of the two beds this room contains is free of such junk, indicating that the place must be home to somebody. Sitting on that bed is a young man in a leather jacket. At first he sits still, but then he begins to look around the room as if surveying the many objects it contains. He fixes his gaze on a bucket suspended inexplicably from the ceiling. He then looks out over the lip of the stage into the darkness of the auditorium, his face empty of expression. There is a thirty-second silence – a wait that can seem uncomfortably twice as long in the theatre.

Watching this silent figure, we in the audience might gather from his slow consideration of his surroundings that he is a stranger to the place, or we might presume that the room we find him in is in fact his own and that he is despairing of its state. During his thirty seconds of fixed silence, we are given the time to absorb the details of the room and wonder what the character might be waiting for. A minor anticipation is allowed to develop as we expect an imminent introduction. When we hear a door bang and muffled voices, we sense that our curiosity is soon to be satisfied. Instead, the young man quietly stands, goes out through the door and closes it gently behind him. There is a third silence, a dramatic punctuation mark that neatly closes that first short scene and allows our gentle surprise and disappointment to establish themselves. Then in come two men: a polite fellow in smart but old clothes and a tramp-like old man who seems rude and edgy. The first of these comes across unambiguously as the room's occupant, as he enters first, pockets the key, closes the door and immediately invites his guest to take a seat. The first man speaks little, is kind and simple-natured. The tramp is evasive and clearly out to gain as much as he can from his companion's generosity.