A Gray Play Book by Alasdair Gray sampler

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10 autobiography. When a radio or television play was rewritten for the stage, the stage version is printed in hope that it may be staged again. Stranger things have happened. Shaw’s success as a playwright led to the publication of his early rejected novels, which are far more mentally stimulating than fiction by all but the greatest novelists. If you find no such stimulation in this book you will be right to dismiss it as a vanity publication. But I cannot. On reading them again I was fascinated by how most, even the domestic dramas, reflect the political mood of the time they were written. This cannot be said of the first and shortest, written in the last year of the Second World War when I lived with my family in the pleasant market town of Wetherby, Yorkshire. My father was manager there of a hostel for munitions workers between the town and its more famous racecourse. The hostel had a high wire-netting fence round it with gates through which the workers, over a thousand young women, were bussed to and from a factory where they made explosives. The gates were only locked at night and to me it had the character of a friendly concentration camp. There was a bungalow for the manager and his family, prefabricated dormitory blocks where the workers slept, a small hospital called The Sick Bay, administrative offices, a lounge, a library, a big refectory for breakfast and evening meals, also a concert hall where films were shown and plays presented by a band of actors paid by the government to entertain war-workers. My only previous experience of staged theatre had been pantomimes. In the hostel concert hall I saw Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams (a modern murder play) and Twelfth Night – my first meeting with Shakespeare, in which I sympathised with Malvolio, disliked the heartless merrymakers who tortured him and have ever since regarded that play as his tragedy. And sometimes my Dad helped people in the hostel to stage concerts in which anyone who presented themselves with confidence did turns. My mother (who had been in the Glasgow Orpheus Choir between the wars) sang Weel May The Keel Row or a song by Burns. I may have sung Over the Sea to Skye which was my main party piece – the name then given to a song or poem children were taught to sing or recite at family gatherings and domestic parties – but I certainly recited Ten Little Houses and another comic poem from a book for children by Gilbert Frankau. I must have been excited by performing on stage before a full audience but can now only remember taking it for granted. No doubt my parents were thus encouraging me to be a right little show off, but they reproved me for showing off at home or in private life. They only wanted me to get attention when I had something useful or interesting to say, show or give. The primary school I attended was called The Church School, though I cannot remember receiving religious instruction there. I was generally happy with my classmates and teachers. The lessons never seemed too strenuous, and I enjoyed a practice never found in any later school attended or heard of. When our teacher had an official piece of business that kept her busy at her classroom desk, she invited any pupil who wanted the job to come to the front of the class and tell the rest a story. I was so eager for this job that I cannot remember anyone else doing it. Under the English class system I was perhaps treated as a privileged child – almost one of the big landowning class – because Dad was responsible to the Ministry of Munitions for employing a local staff of over two hundred. My parents once invited home for an evening meal my teacher, Miss Kershaw, something they would never have thought of doing in Glasgow. Miss Kershaw let me produce my first play in her classroom when I was nine. I found the characters, scene and action in a child’s prose version of Homer’s Odyssey borrowed from Wetherby’s public library, a story I found as fascinating as The Wind in the Willows, Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring and Kingsley’s Water Babies, read about the same time. I copied the speeches straight from the book, only shortening them a little, and have never since written a play so fast or had it produced so swiftly, being myself the producer. For the part of Odysseus I chose a friend whose name I can no longer remember unless it was Raymond Daybell. I acted the most interesting character, Polyphemus. My dad typed the result and here it is.
CHARACTERS: THE CAVE OF POLYPHEMUS 1944 ODYSSEUS and TWO FOLLOWERS POLYPHEMUS and TWO FOLLOWERS SHEEP and GOATS SCENE: Cave with cheeses hung on walls, bowls of milk against wall, fire on floor, and corner of cave hidden by partition, with shepherd’s staff seen. Entrance on left. Enter O. and F., former with skin of wine. O What strange place is this? It seems as if it were inhabited by some monster. 1ST F True Odysseus, but here is food and drink in plenty. 2ND F Let us eat our fill then go our way before the monster returns. O: But that would be discourteous. We will wait for the monster’s return and ask for the food. Enter POLYPHEMUS driving sheep and goats with much shouting 1ST F Look, here comes the monster. P Oh who are ye who enter the domain of the mighty Polyphemus? O We are men from Troy who seek your hospitality. We are hungry. P Where is thy ship? O Alas our good ship has been dashed to pieces on the rocks. 2ND F We are the only survivors good Polyphemus. P I also am hungry but I have a different way of satisfying my hunger. O How is that? P Thus. P throws 1ST FOLLOWER into corner behind screen. There are hungry noises from corner, and P comes out after all falls quiet smacking his lips. During this O and 2ND FOLLOWER cower and whisper. O Cruel giant, drink wine since ye have eaten of men’s flesh (holds out wine). P: Thanks little man, but tell me thy name that I may reward ye. O No man is my name. P [after drinking the wine] The wine is excellent no man, and thy reward, thou shall be eaten last, Ha Ha Ha. P yawns and lies down and goes to sleep at back of cave. 2ND F Let us slay this monster. [drawing his sword] O: No, if this giant is slain how can we escape? We can’t remove the boulder from the mouth of the cave. It is too heavy. 2ND F Then what will we do? O: Listen, I have a plan. You see that staff there. We will put its end in the fire then put it into the giant’s eye. 2ND F That is a great plan indeed. Come let us get the staff. Quietly the staff is obtained. Both hold it in the fire and turn it round for a few seconds then slowly approach the giant and stick it into his eye. P Oh my eye, my eye. Comrades save me. There are sounds of heavy feet running. They stop outside the cave. 1ST VOICE What ails thee, Polyphemus? 2ND V Why wake us from our sleep? 1ST V Does any man harm thee? P: No man harms me. No man is killing me. 2ND V If no man harms thee it must be illness, and that we cannot cure. 1ST V (to his comrade) We will return to our sheep. Footsteps fade away in distance. P You shall not escape me. I know thou art still in this cave. I will find thee, never fear. P gropes his way around, O and F dodge him P I shall take my sheep and goats out to graze but thou shall not escape me. P gropes round cave until he finds animals. As he does this O and F. whisper then go to the mouth of the cave and wait. P. drives animals to mouth and moves boulder. As he does this O. and F. get beneath animals. As animals pass out P. feels back and sides of SHEEP and GOATS but not beneath them. After they pass out P. replaces the boulder and as he does this says. P Thou art still in the cave I know. I will call my comrades later and they will return and find thee. Fare thee well. As he goes away he laughs and his Ha, Ha, Ha, fades away. 11
Page 3: A GRAY PLAYBOOK
Page 6 and 7: First published in Great Britain 20
Page 8 and 9: 6 TABLE OF 9 HOW THIS BOOK GOT MADE
Page 10 and 11: 8
Page 14 and 15: 12 L IKE MOST BRITISH CHILDREN livi
Page 16 and 17: 14 JONAH nuclear war. (Historical n
Page 18 and 19: 16 JONAH SCENES 1) Outside Nazareth
Page 20 and 21: 18 JONAH CAPTAIN [scratching his ea
Page 22 and 23: 20 JONAH In the belly of Hell I rem
Page 24 and 25: 22 JONAH The GENERAL leaves. CHIEF

A Gray Play Book by Alasdair Gray sampler

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