4 Strange Plays

ACT 1 SCENE 1

(Morning. High summer, heatwave. Main living area of poet ELLIS’s cottage. Cottage built into hillside, back wall solid rock face. Alcove at back, with makeshift, locked door. Inside a short platform, with tailor’s dummies. Battered, unkempt cot, right back. Left front, front door. Table with writing pads. Screwed up sheets of paper litter floor. Pencils, biros in cups. Books piled here and there. Rickety chairs, ancient sofa, empty bottles of liquor, glasses, unwashed dishes. Sink. No taps. Bucket of water close by. Hung up nets, fishing gear, assorted necklaces of sea-shells, pebbles, stones of various brilliant colours; dried sea-weed, bones, drift wood. Sound of sea and wind. To right of front door, big window open. Views from window take in beach below, Hoodie-Raven Caves on  sea shore; path up from the beach to front door, past cottage, upwards to fallen cliffs and standing cromlech above. Sun streams in through window. Harsh cries of gulls. Jars of sea-pinks, sea-asters, sea-holy, around. OLGA, 36, ELLIS’s former girl friend, overweight, sweating, fusses, tidying up, manic mood swings, in revealing cotton dress. ELLIS, unshaven, 35, on cot, eyes closed, suffering from hangover. Sound of rumbling, splashing crash from outside. ELLIS groans. OLGA looks out of window)

OLGA: From the cliffs. Another rock fall.

ELLIS: Why is it so fucking hot?

OLGA: Wind’s quite cool.

ELLIS: No it is not. (Throws empty beer bottle aside) Never drink in a heat wave.

ELLIS (shriek of gulls outside window. ELLIS dashes to window): Fuck off! Go! See. Up there! Around the cromlech. Black-headed sea-crows! Bloody satan-hoods. Carrion filth! Go back to hell! (Sniffs air at window. Recoils. Clutches head. Splashes water on his face from bucket. Flops down) Ah!

OLGA: You alright?

ELLIS: Can’t be, can I? I mean, to come back here. And stop rushing about, I can smell you from here.

OLGA: So you arrived a week ago really?

ELLIS: Yes.

OLGA: Why didn’t you come to see us straight away?

ELLIS: Things to do.

OLGA: No one spotted you.

ELLIS: No one comes up here. A ruin stuck in a cliff.  Draw the curtains.

OLGA: Give us a hand then.

ELLIS: No.

OLGA: Ellis! Please.

ELLIS: Lots more to drink is there?

OLGA:  No.

ELLIS: Go and buy some then.

OLGA: Aaron’s bringing back more. Remember?

ELLIS: No.

OLGA: Impossible to tidy up after you. (Shakes alcove door) Why’s this door here locked?

ELLIS: Leave it I said! (Sound of a rock fall. Looks out of window) Farther down this time. Beyond the caves. (Looks upward)  Path down to the beach still intact and up to the Cromlech. Look! They’ve put up another breakwater. Why? We’re being swallowed up by the sea. Village is deserted except for demented dregs like you and me. Everyone’s gone to the filthy city. No one wants this rotting finger of useless land, this hopeless spot of putrid Wales. Chapel’s gone, graveyard too. Half the houses at the bottom of the bleeding ocean. The tourists, our last salvation, stay away in droves. Cromlech’s teetering on the brink. So of all things, they decide to dig it up for bronze-age relics. Us! And what do they find? Shale, slate, gull shit, and, surprise, surprise, nests of vipers. And then…