About / Bio
I am a published and produced mid-career playwright. Productions include Crossing Jerusalem at The Tricycle Theatre, Park Theatre and Karlsruhe Staatstheater, Germany. At the Finborough Theatre my plays 12: 37 and Blueprint Medea premiered. Woman in the Moon was staged at the Arcola Theatre, Nineveh at the Riverside Studios and international touring for Theresa, The Dybbuk and St Joan.
A full list of published and produced plays can be seen here www.juliapascal.org
As well as producing dramas in theatre spaces I have created community, site-specific work for Festivals.
These include Ulyssa at Senate House and Dancing, Talking, Taboo at St Pancras Church.
Currently I am working on a production of my latest drama As Happy As God In France which explores what happened to Hannah Arendt in 1940.
I have worked as a radio broadcaster, print journalist and have taught dramatic writing at a variety of universities.
Currently I am a Research Fellow at King’s College, London University.
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THIS IS A ONE HOUR SCRIPT
A MANCHESTER GIRLHOOD
by
Julia Pascal
SCENE ONE- THE STORY OF ESTHER
The cast come on stage and look at the audience. As the music starts they form a sculpted group with their heads looking up in different directions.[1]
The Chorus can be the group or different individuals in the group.
CHORUS Once upon a time there was a Romanian Jewish woman
ESTHER Esther Goldenberg
CHORUS You must marry
CHORUS an old man.
ESTHER I won’t.
CHORUS What do you mean you won’t?
ESTHER Not an old man.
CHORUS Difficult girl
CHORUS Here is a young one.
ESTHER I see his postcard on the mat.
MALE ACTOR ‘How much is the dowry?’
ESTHER He wants me for my dowry? No!
CHORUS Difficult girl.
CHORUS You can’t refuse a third.
ESTHER Leave me alone!
CHORUS Emanuel
CHORUS His Hebrew name is Moses.
CHORUS Moses led his people away from danger.
CHORUS Romania is dangerous for Jews
CHORUS He sells shoelaces door to door.
CHORUS He works hard.
CHORUS He loves you.
ESTHER He is small. All that curly hair! Feh!
CHORUS Say yes
ESTHER No!
CHORUS You must.
ESTHER Why must Esther Goldenberg become Esther Jacobs?
CHORUS Because, because, because
The female performers walk around the male. Normally the bride would circle her husband seven times. In this case all the women can circle him like a second hand on a watch to reveal the tradition that all brides must follow. Emanuel steps on the glass.
ENSEMBLE Mazel Tov!
CHORUS Now that you are husband and wife
CHORUS You will leave Romania
ESTHER where they call us
CHORUS ‘Dirty Jews’.
CHORUS Where will you go?
ESTHER I love Germany.
CHORUS Does Germany love Jews?
EMANUEL England
ESTHER No!
CHORUS Out of danger
ESTHER From the sunny streets of Bucharest
CHORUS to the rain-filled Manchester sod.
EMANUEL Fast comes a son
ESTHER and three daughters.
ISABEL Isabel
EDITH Edith
PEARL Pearl
CHORUS Three sisters.
EDITH Birth
ISABEL Marriage
EDITH Children
ISABEL (with disgust) Children.
PEARL Death
ESTHER They say that in your last moments
1 all
2 your
3 life
4 flashes
5 before you.
SCENE TWO- Journey to a wet, cold country
A doll is thrown onstage. Edith runs to grab her. Isabel pulls it from her.
PEARL Give her to me, mother.
ISABEL Me!
EDITH Me!!
Esther takes the doll. She suspends it from a hook where it remains.
Now old, Isabel, Edith and Pearl are upright with a sheet around their necks.
They are in three separate beds.
ISABEL The doll is mine. I am the oldest. I deserve it. My daddy would have given it to me. Why are you dead my darling daddy?
You love me best. I know it.
ESTHER I speak no English. My husband forbids me to go to night school to learn. ‘What if other men see you?’
EMANUEL What if other men listen to your voice, look at your blonde hair, sense the warmth of your body, put their hands on your breasts, what shame will I feel with my wife in a room full of men who want to fill you up with their mouth? Their hands? Their everything?
ISABEL
Cecil won’t let me wear trousers.
‘A doctor’s wife should not dress like a man.’.
ISABEL I am ill. Look how unwell I am.
Looking at Edith and Pearl.
What are you laughing at, you bitches?
And you? Did you do such great things with your lives?
Did you marry a doctor?
Pearl sings The Star Spangled Banner.
ISABEL (Interrupting her)
Running around with the soldiers. Staying out late.
Daddy so worried about you.
PEARL Albert! Dance with me.
The ensemble sing The Star Spangled Banner while Pearl and Albert jitterbug to music that is not meant to be a jive.
ISABEL (To Pearl) You married a refugee. A nobody.
(To Edith) You married a Christian.
I married a Jewish doctor! I am a doctor’s wife.
Who are you?!
Isabel powders her face white.
I am not well. Leave me alone. All of you.
ESTHER Come on girls. Time for school.
EMANUEL They will leave at fourteen.
ESTHER Eighteen! They will learn languages
EDITH (proudly) Je m’appèlle Edith. Je suis à Manchester.
PEARL (proudly) Hablo español!
ISABEL (proudly) I can speak French, German and Spanish
EMANUEL Waste of time.
ESTHER They will learn everything I did not.
EMANUEL Fourteen
ESTHER Eighteen
EMANUEL The girls must earn. We need money. You think we are safe?
Who knows when we will need to take our suitcases again.
Cash to get out of here fast. Let the girls earn it.
ESTHER No!
CHORUS Educatio
PEARL is never
ISABEL too heavy
EDITH to carry around.
ISABEL I want to be an actress. ‘There’s rosemary for you. There’s fennel for you.
EDITH Oh you must wear your rue with a difference
PEARL I would give you some violets…’
ESTHER What is this?
EDITH Shakespeare
ESTHER My clever, clever girls.
The three sisters hug. Esther hugs them all.
EMANUEL Clever is cash in the pocket to get out fast.
ESTHER NO! NO!! NO!!!
SCENE THREE -PREPARING FOR WORK
The three women come downstage and touch type on imaginary typewriters in the air. They all push back the carriage of the machine at the same time.
A bell rings as they do it. They become competitive and ‘type’ faster.
TEACHER ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’.
Why do we type this sentence?
PEARL, EDITH,
ISABEL Because it contains all the letters in the English language.
ISABEL I can type
EDITH sixty words
PEARL a minute.
TEACHER The clerical secretary
The next three speeches are inner monologues
PEARL I don’t want to be a secretary, I want to run the office
ISABEL I don’t want to be a secretary. I want to be Elizabeth Taylor.
EDITH I am going to be something more than a secretary but what?
TEACHER The clerical secretary
PEARL must know
EDITH shorthand
TEACHER Two hundred and forty words
EDITH a minute!
ISABEL She must have excellent spelling
EDITH ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’
ISABEL punctuation
EDITH no comma before ‘and’ or ‘but’
TEACHER Excellent
PEARL paragraphing
ISABEL whenever you change the subject
TEACHER and
EDITH excellent precision
ISABEL The letter must look good on the page.
(To Edith) Did you marry a doctor?
TEACHER The clerical secretary must also have a sense of humour when it is needed to diffuse a difficult situation. Knowing how to make a joke, that is in good taste, will always be useful for the working girl.
Isabel walks arm in arm with Pearl and pretends to be her friend.
ISABEL
(To Pearl) Did you marry a doctor?
TEACHER For example, what’s the difference between god and a doctor?
ISABEL I don’t know. What is the difference between god and a doctor?
EDITH God knows he is not a doctor.
ISABEL Jealous!
TEACHER Now girls. Remember this job is important even if it is something you do while you wait to get married. Family is all.
CHORUS ‘Family is all’
COMIC 1 Time for another joke.
New York accent. During this joke the actors walk through the action in the style of Yiddish
Theatre. This is Jews mocking Jews.
COMIC 2 Mr. Goldstein was walking down the street in New York City one Sunday morning on his way to buy some bagels, when suddenly, a terrible thunderstorm began. Along with hundreds of others trying to escape the rain, Mr. Goldberg ran through the open doors of the nearby St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get in, and before he knew it, Mr. Goldstein was standing in a line. Not comprehending what was happening, he opened his mouth to ask a question, and in popped a communion wafer from the priest! Reeling with shame and shaking from the cold rain, Mr. Goldstein calls his daughter. She doesn’t pick up. He calls his son. He doesn’t pick up. He calls his wife. Line is busy.
Disgusted, Mr. Goldstein hangs up the phone and mutters to himself “For ten minutes I’ve been a Catholic, and already I hate three Jews!”
SCENE FOUR- WAR!
SOUND OF AIR RAID SIRENS
The cast become a sculpted body whose faces talk to the audience.
CHORUS All men are to present themselves for call up.
EDITH I must do my duty. I must fight Hitler.
ISABEL How will I find a husband now?
PEARL When will the Americans come to save us?
EDITH Army? Navy? Airforce?
Edith holds her army uniform against her body. It still fits. She shows it to the rest of the ensemble, her arms outstretched.
EDITH Army? Navy? Airforce? Army. The Army has the best uniform. I can serve. I can fight. Freedom!
SCENE FIVE–JOINING THE ARMY
The Recruiting Office.
EDITH I want to join serve my country.
OFFICER Name?
EDITH Edith Jacobs
OFFICER Nationality?
EDITH (proudly) British.
OFFICER Parents?
EDITH Romanian.
OFFICER Naturalized?
EDITH They don’t have the money.
OFFICER Your parents are Romanians and you want to join the British Army?
EDITH: Yes.
OFFICER Romania is our enemy. Germany’s ally. (Violently)
Get out of here before I have you arrested!
Edith is ‘typing’ on the air typewriter.
EDITH 89 Albert Avenue, Sedgley Park, Prestwich, Manchester, 31st August 1940. To The Under-Secretary of State War Office, A.G.10.,
CHORUS Dear Sir
1 May I take the liberty of respectfully approaching you regarding my application for enlistment in the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
2 Being desirous of doing my utmost to serve the country of my birth, and noticing the frequent and urgent appeal for women volunteers displayed in Manchester.
EDITH I therefore completed the necessary form for service in the capacity of shorthand typist in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, six weeks ago. I would mention here that my parents are of
EMANUEL Rumanian origin and have resided
ESTHER in this country for twenty- eight years,
EDITH and so it was necessary for me to complete an Alien’s form. `I myself am born in Manchester. I would like to inform you that my application was
CHORUS refused
EDITH and this caused me some surprise and, I must admit, great disappointment, for I am most anxious to do all in my power to be of service.
CHORUS I wonder if you would be so kind as to reconsider my application in view of the above mentioned particulars
EDITH and the urgent need for shorthand typists in this connection as I am particularly experienced in this type of work. I would deem it
CHORUS an honour
EDITH if my letter could be favoured with your attention and would at any time furnish any further particulars required.
CHORUS I am, dear Sir, Your obedient servant.
EDITH Edith Jacobs
All the women are ‘typing’. The bell of the typewriter punctuates the following.
FEMALE ENSEMBLE
- The War Office
- London SW1
- 25th. September, 1940. Tel. No. Whitehall 9400
MALE ACTOR Madam. I am directed to refer to your letter, dated 31st, August 1940 and to thank you for your excellent spirit which prompts you to apply for enrolment in the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
CHORUS New paragraph.
MALE ACTOR I am to say that your application will be accepted
Edith jumps up in the air with delight.
CHORUS Comma
MALE ACTOR provided you are passed medically fit.
CHORUS Full stop.
EDITH does push- ups, she runs on the spot she skips with an imaginary rope.
CHORUS Subaltern Jacobs. Move!
Edith puts on her uniform. She marches around the stage
ISABEL Look at her. So mannish. Who does she think she is.
Looks up at the doll.
Little Dolly Day Dreams. Don’t watch her. I want to tell you a secret soon. You must never tell anybody. Do you promise?
EDITH
Edith sings God Save the King and intersperses it with the oath of allegiance.
Company sing Oh God, our Lord arise while Edith speaks.
God save our gracious king
I Edith Jacobs, swear by Almighty God, that I will be
Long live our noble
Faithful and bear true
Send him victorious
Happy and
Allegiance to his Majesty
King George VI (Saxe Coburg Gotha)
Thy choicest gifts to store
To sing with heart and voice
His heirs and successors
Oh God our Lord arise
Scatter his enemies and make them fall
Saxe Coburg Gotha???
Edith walks to another side of the stage to suggest the passing of time and the discovery of the Shoah.
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put
Jewman together again.[2]
SCENE SIX- SOLDIERING. HOW TO MAKE A WW2 GRENADE FROM A RUSTY WW1 DEVICE
EDITH Manchester to Carlisle. One hundred and eighteen miles. Not far from Gretna Green. Now girls. Pay attention. We will examine these grenades. We will take them apart. Pay attention. When I say it is safe, you can polish and clean[3]. We’ll soon have these little darlings put back together again and sent directly to Fritz. Achtung Adolf. We English women are going to blast you to smithereens.
The women cheer. The women dance together.
Sleeping in the barracks with all those girls. Women in bed together. What are they doing? Makes me sick. It’s not normal. It’s not normal. It’s not normal.
Edith puts her hands over her ears. She sings. He who would valiant be.
The ensemble join her. This becomes a choir.
SCENE- TO BE A CHRISTIAN
Inside of a church.
EDITH Father
VICAR Yes my child.
EDITH I have to talk to you.
VICAR Yes my child.
EDITH I am a Jew. I want to be a Christian.
VICAR What brings you to this decision?
EDITH Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
VICAR Thy kingdom come
EDITH You believe that Christ’s kingdom will come?
VICAR Do you?
EDITH Jesus was a Jew.
VICAR Why do you want to be one of us?
EDITH ‘One of us’?
VICAR Why?
EDITH I have met a pilot. He is a Christian. We will marry.
VICAR You want to be a Christian for marriage? You don’t want to come to our Lord for your faith?
EDITH Faith in Jesus. Jesus was a Jew. It is the same God.
VICAR Yes the same God. Our father. And Jesus is his son.
EDITH
(inner monologue) I don’t want to be the daughter of foreigners. Daughter of the enemies. But how can they be enemies. They are Jews.
God save the King. The King? But I hate privilege.
I hate bending my knee. A ‘subject’? I am a freeborn English woman.I am as good as anyone whose parents were born here. I am British and I love being British. I don’t speak Romanian. I don’t speak Yiddish. I am going to be a Christian. But they tell me that the Jews killed their Lord. I mean my Lord. But Jesus was a Jew. Why would a Jew kill Jesus son of the carpenter, Jesus was a teacher not a god. He was killed by the Romans for making trouble. The Romans crucified Jesus and Jesus was a Jew. I love Christianity but I am a Jew. Hitler says so. Four Jewish grandparents makes me a Jew. But I can turn away. I can be a Christian. Jesus I love you. Will you love me?
VICAR Are you ready my child?
EDITH Ready
VICAR To be baptized in to Jesus?
ESTHER Edith. What are you doing?
SCENE EIGHT -A FIANCEE IN WAITING
Music playing low under the monologue. Clara Schumann – Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7
From 9 minutes 41 seconds.
ISABEL
Isabel to the doll
Dolly, dolly, dolly. Little Dolly Daydream! Look at Edith. So unladylike. Does she think she is better than me? Won’t she be green when she finds out I am marrying a Jewish doctor from a respectable Irish family. Cecil with his Dublin accent. (She imitates him) Shall we be going to the filums? Shall we? When he is in ordinary clothes I can’t quite see him. But the shiny buttons, the khaki gives him shape. Thick curly hair and glasses. He’s in India now at the Military Hospital. Deolali. Did you know Dolly that Deolali is the same word as ‘doollally’? It’s the Indian hospital where they sent the mad British soldiers. (Beat) When Cecil comes home I shall find white parachute silk for my dress. Darling Cecil. I am sending you my photo so that you do not forget me when you are surrounded by pretty Indian nurses. My white blouse with my hair all curls and a cameo at my neck. I know the censor will read this but I don’t care. Listen, dolly. Don’t tell Cecil but the handsome pilots come to the house. Tonight comes Mark. He would make a good husband. Oh, I am going to tell you a secret. Promise to tell nobody. When Mark comes to see us, I have this feeling of I –don’t- know- where- to-look. When he is in our house, I can’t get the air in me to breathe. And there is Edith talking to him so easily as if he were our brother which he is not. She talks army to him and I can’t. He likes her more than he likes me, I can’t bear it! I will make him love me. I can if I want to. I must just catch my breath. (Beat) Oh dolly, what happens if Cecil doesn’t come back? Mark is so handsome. Maybe I should marry him? But a pilot has a short life. Dolly I have something else to tell you. Don’t be shocked! In Romania. I went with mummy to see grandma and grandpa. They came from Moscow. (Beat) What are we dolly? Are we English? Are we Romanian? Are we Russian? Oh it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I tell you everything. In Bucharest, 1939, I am twenty- one years old. There is a big party with an orchestra and dancing, I want to take you with me. And there is a young man. Andrei. Tall. Not like Cecil. Smooth hair, not like Cecil. Green- green eyes and a mouth with such full lips I want to burn my fingers on them. And he takes my arm and walks me out on to the balcony of the house to dance with him, and the smell of the roses are so strong and he gives me a glass of champagne, and he whirls me around to the music. Everything turning with the bubbles in my mouth and in my head and then, what do you think! He puts his nose in to my dimples! So naughty! And when I am dizzy with the smell and the taste of it all his hand goes you -know -where! His fingers touching me where it is tingly and his full- full lips on my mouth. And bang! A firework and the sky a Catherine Wheel and the people come out and he whispers I must see you tomorrow. And he gives me his address. And all night I lie awake thinking of him. And I must go. I will go. I don’t care if it is wrong I have to see him and he has to touch me like he did last night. Look dawn is breaking.
She puts on a pretty dress.
Look at me. I am lovely. I want to walk across a stage and for everyone to admire my beauty.
She twirls.
Mother. What are you doing in my room so early?
ESTHER A telegram from your father.
ISABEL What is it?
CHORUS WAR! COME HOME. STOP. URGENTLY.STOP.
Isabel picks up a suitcase. She walks and puts it down. She is dressed in her wedding veil.
Music starts as if the wedding is en route. Joel Rubin – Hungry Hearts Mazeltov der Shviger (Congratulations to the Mother in law. She sees Edith marching.
ISABEL And Edith, if you think you are wearing that uniform to my wedding, you’ve got another think coming.
SCENE NINE – THE WEDDING
Two time zones are played simultaneously. The wedding and before the wedding. Freeze the wedding to realise the conflict before it. Isabel in her wedding dress with Cecil next to her in army uniform says the following.
Edith is in her uniform. Cecil is in his uniform
CHORUS Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?
ISABEL (To Edith)
No uniform. I forbid it.
ISABEL Grey dresses.
PEARL Grey?
EDITH Grey?
ISABEL Everyone must look at me. Not at you.
EDITH I am not allowed to appear in public unless I am in my uniform.
ISABEL (Bullying) You will wear what I say.
EDITH Do you want me to be court-martialled?
ISABEL I can’t stand it. Mummy, daddy. She’s a bully. If she wears her uniform. I will cancel my wedding!
To the doll
ISABEL I am right aren’t I dolly?
ESTHER Come on Edith. Do as your sister wants.
EMANUEL Come on, be a good girl.
CHORUS Think of the shame.
EDITH I cannot break the law. Even for you.
ISABEL You will do what I say It is MY WEDDING.
Music resumes. The circle of Esther’s wedding is repeated as the cast walk around
the bridegroom. A glass is smashed. The group shout Mazel Tov! They applaud. One
by one the clapping stops as each cast member, apart from the actor playing Isabel,
opens a newspaper. They read. Isabel is alone.
CHORUS She helps to save £1,000,000.
1 Edith Jacobs
2 The only ammunitions officer in the ATS
3 is a 22- year old Manchester girl leading servicing 50 ATS girls
who have just completed the job of salvaging £1,000,000 worth of flooded ammunitions.
ISABEL stands aside as she is upstaged. She rips off her wedding veil, throws herself on the floor and sobs.
SCENE TEN –WAR 1940-1944
EDITH What are we going to eat dolly? Our food is torpedoed in the convoys coming to feed us. While there is breath in my body, dolly, I promise we won’t let them win.
Sound of sirens
CHORUS Piccadilly is blazing! Blitz! Run to the Anderson Shelter. Come on Pearl. All single women must work.
The cast throw bandages at Pearl. She rolls them as fast as she can.
PEARL When are the Americans coming?
ISABEL When are they coming?
EDITH When? When? When?
Pearl sings The Star Spangled Banner but it should be slightly distorted and different from how she sang it earlier. The male actor puts on American GI uniform to play Albert.
(Albert dances with Pearl in slow motion.)
ISABEL All those young Americans. So handsome. If only I were not married.
(watching Pearl)
Why should she get an American and a Jew?
(Actor playing Isabel taps a time step.)
ISABEL I am sick sick sick of all this grey, grey, grey. Coupons for food. Coupons for clothes. Why does she get all the fun? Look at her! And look at me waiting for a husband who may never come back.
Edith marches across the stage. Albert salutes her. He jitterbugs with Edith.
EDITH You are a German Jew?
ALBERT Hitler/
EDITH May his name be wiped from the earth
ALBERT /killed my father
EDITH Mother?
ALBERT Concentration camp
EDITH Sister?
ALBERT Concentration camp.
ISABEL You are very good looking. Schön.Do you know that I learned German in school? Speaking German is like eating a very juicy steak. Not that we do that anymore. Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten dass ich so traurig bin. That’s Goethe!
EDITH Not Goethe. Heinrich Heine.
ISABEL Shut up! (To Albert, flirtatiously)
Say something to me. Auf Deutsch.
ALBERT I will never speak German again.
ISABEL Oh?
ALBERT I am an American now!
CHORUS Over
ALBERT sexed,
CHORUS over paid and
ALBERT over here!
CHORUS (American accent) This US Army directive.
ALBERT ‘A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can command and often does-give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame.
EDITH For British women have proven themselves in this war. They have stuck to their posts near burning ammunition dumps,
ALBERT delivered messages afoot after their motor cycles have been blasted from under them.
CHORUS (American accent) They have pulled aviators from burning planes.
PEARL They have died at gun posts and
ISABEL as they fell
PEARL another girl has stepped directly into the position and ‘carried on’.
ALBERT There is not a single record in this war of any British woman in uniformed service quitting her post or failing in her duty under fire.
EDITH When you see a girl in khaki or air force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic-
ALBERT remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich’.
Company sing This Is The Army Mr Jones[4] mix it with The Battle Hymn of the Republic [5]
They walk up and down in a broken line so that one back and one face is seen by the
audience. This is a reference to the power of the American musical which will enter English
culture.
SCENE ELEVEN- THE NEW WORLD
CHORUS June 6 1944. Deliverance Day. D-Day.
EDITH The whole country is shaking. I feel the island trembling as jeeps, trucks every vehicle you can think of is moving to the sea. Every man in uniform is standing or lying in a ship, his blood high in his brain, will I live through the day, the hour, the second?
AMERICAN And every man climbs out of the ship and in to the sea and as he is hit by a German bullet, another young man takes his place and as he is hit, another young man from Arkansaw, from Idaho, from Louisiana and
PEARL Don’t get killed Albert!
ISABEL When the war is over, Cecil comes back!
PEARL Albert comes back.
CHORUS Women army officers are to be demobilised. You have choice.
1 Oxford?
2 Cambridge
3 You. Jacobs. You are good with munitions. Come and work in Germany.
Help build a new world in the ruins.
ESTHER Three sisters become three housewives
EDITH Demobilisation. I am offered a university degree, all of us women officers are
PEARL but we will all
ESTHER become housewives
Pearl waves a small American flag
Look at me! A war bride on the Queen Mary!
EDITH I will marry a good looking pilot. A Christian.
ISABEL You are killing our father. Marry a goy and it will end in divorce!
EDITH Sister I will marry him. (Ironic reference to Reader I married him).[6]
CHORUS Married women are not allowed to work.
PEARL In America I shall work. In America women are free!
ISABEL I will have a boy and a girl!
PEARL I will have a boy and a girl!
EDITH I will have two boys!!!
ISABEL I hate you.
Sound of babies crying.
All the women hold their hands to their ears to shut out the sound in a comic moment that demystifies motherhood.
SCENE TWELVE –POSTWAR
The ensemble is moving. All dance. Split moments happen in parallel times during the scene.
EDITH A new life. I vote Labour.
CECIL A National Health Service. I don’t have to pay for a practice. We buy a house in Blackpool.
ISABEL Six thousand pounds. My daddy pays. Blackpool where the wind is high even on a summer’s day.
CECIL The sea air is good for the health.
ISABEL I marry a doctor but we live like poor people. A socialist.
CECIL The worst thing that could happen to a human being is to win millions in the lottery.
ISABEL Why don’t I have a maid like other women. Cecil with his meschugass
CECIL We don’t want strangers in the house.
ISABEL Why don’t I have nice clothes like other women?
CECIL You have enough to last many lifetimes.
ISABEL And my son, what does he do. Running after girls
CHORUS when he should be looking after me.
ISABEL And my daughter, busy with her own life
CHORUS instead of looking after me.
ISBAEL I like it when she washes and sets my hair every few days.
CHORUS Why can’t she get married
ISABEL and live close by so that she can
CHORUS look after me.
ISABEL I am a good mother. I teach her
CHORUS Give the largest portion of meat to your husband.
ISABEL When you wash your husband’s shirts
CHORUS scrub the collar and sleeves with a brush and some soap
ISABEL Men are dirty and women must
CHORUS clean up after them
ISABEL I work like a slave cleaning the house. Daddy why aren’t you here?
Take me home daddy.
CHORUS Why did you send your baby daughter to your parents?
Isabel beats the floor with rage.
ISABEL I wish I was dead! I am a doctor’s wife and I wish I was dead. My daddy reads the Manchester Guardian every day. He is very clever. My daddy takes us to the Hallé Orchestra. We hear Myra Hess playing music about Jesus. (To the audience) She’s a Jew you know.
Daddy, why did you die and leave me? Why did I marry Cecil instead of Mark or an American. What a mistake.
CHORUS You have children.
ISABEL They exhaust me.
EDITH Two boys. Their little arms around my neck!
ISABEL You always thought you were better than me. Two boys, when I have only one.
EDITH You have a daughter.
ISABEL A girl! What use is a girl? Give me the doll.
They fight for it. Edith keeps it. Isabel goes to the clothes heap and puts on/takes off
different items. Pearl dances. American music?
PEARL Oh look at me. How did I get old? How did I get a granddaughter? She lives in Huston. Sugarland. That’s where the blacks worked the fields. Albert calls them schwarzes. I hate that. The Nazis killed Albert’s father and he says why can’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps like we did? I keep my tongue in my head when he calls Martin Luther King a rabble rouser. Can’t he see that they are us and we are them and aren’t well the same under the skin? Did I choose to be a Jew? Did our gardener Amos choose to be black? Hello Amos.
Why are you crying.
AMOS/CHORUS A noose. I open the mail and there it is.
PEARL I want to kill whoever did that. And I can’t tell my husband. I can’t tell anyone that I see a fine man cry because someone sent him a lynch rope. (She sees something scuttle)
Oh what is that? A cockroach.
(She stamps)
I hate you! I want a cat to kill you.
Albert’s coming home soon. I had better make dinner.
This weekend we will see his mother. The woman whose husband was injected by the Nazis and who was sent to her in a parcel of ashes. Hello mother in law.
ALBERT’S
MOTHER/CHORUS
Don’t think you will be the most important woman in Albert’s life. I am number one.
PEARL You are number one. And I am what?
ESTHER I’m sitting at my kitchen table. Staring out of the window. This is Prestwich so far from the streets of Bucharest. The rain trickles slowly
PEARL My stomach is raw with emptiness. Just like the war. Have to get out of the house.
ESTHER Why isn’t someone here to buy my Peter Stuyvesant? And where is he? The man who sold shoelaces? Hello Emanuel. Do you hear me down there? There is a swastika on your headstone. Who would do that?
PEARL Mommy, mummy where are you? Daddy I want to work with you.
EMANUEL No that’s for your brother. Not for girls.
ESTHER Why do they hate us? Why do they want to kill us? Even when we are dead?
PEARL I am walking in the Louisiana rain and I don’t care if I never go back to Albert.
ESTHER Emanuel. You waiting for me to fill the hole next to you? (She imagines that her granddaughter is with her) Granddaughter, There’s cash in my purse. Twenty cigarettes with filters.
PEARL Daddy please can I work with you? Import. Export. What lovely words. I will help you make money. My brother’s no good. He won’t love the business as I will.
EMANUEL Women don’t work.
PEARL I want to touch the rolls of fabric, take them out on the wooden table and measure how many yards we cut and send to make curtain and dresses. I want to open the warehouse every day and meet Indians in Manchester who want to export to Delhi and Bombay. I want to learn about balance sheets, tariffs, taxes and transport. I want to travel, to hear different languages, meet different people with different coloured skin. From the suburbs of Manchester to the suburbs of New Orleans.
Mother, you are so far away. I want to swim the Atlantic and find you.
SCENE THIRTEEN – EDITH’s THIRD CHANCE
EDITH I’ve met a man. Well why shouldn’t I? Seventy is not old. Today.
He’s a widower. I am a widow. Did I tell you dolly that he is a doctor. (To the doll) Why am I even talking to you. You are not mine. I come down on my fifth birthday. Mummy and daddy, this doll in the window. I want her for my birthday.
The doll is sitting or standing ready to be given as a gift. Edith goes to get her.
ESTHER No! She is not for you
EMANUEL She is for Isabel
EDITH But it’s my birthday. You promised.
EMANUEL Don’t make a fuss.
ESTHER Shush you will make yourself ill.
EDITH It’s not fair
Isabel triumphantly takes the doll.
ISABEL You being born after me, that’s what’s not fair.
Isabel throws the doll on the ground in rage.
EDITH (To Isabel)
This widower who I see. He is a doctor! He’s retired but he’s still Doctor Freeman. He and I are going to go for a walk in Tatton Park where the Americans were stationed in the war.
(To Isabel)
And what are you doing with your empty little life? I teach public speaking. I have letters after my name. I teach young men. Chinese. African. Beautiful young men who love my lessons.
I am not sure I am the only woman he sees. There is this chatterbox in her fifties from Didsbury. Yack, yack, yack. And the way she flirts with him. I can’t stand it.
But I am still attractive. I have kept my figure. I’ve bought new underwear. Dr Freeman, I mean Jack and I, well, alone, in my flat, just the once, don’t want the neighbours to see. He couldn’t do it. I read up about that. Men who take pills for their blood pressure-you know. But nothing comes from nothing so I help him. Even when it’s not up a man can –you know. But such a mess all over my bed. Just like my sons when they were fourteen. I didn’t say anything to them. Just like I don’t say anything now to Jack. I want to say You are a doctor-r how come you don’t know what to do with a woman?
I haven’t done ‘that’ for thirty years. Young women today, they can have it all. What did I know when I got married. I loved my Christian pilot. I thought that he was forever. And what do you think? He brought his friends back to our house and left them alone with me. You can go with my wife. She likes it. With you not with them! Number Two- they all say he is a respectable Jew with a head for business –oh yes? After ten years, his heart stops. What does he leave me? Gambling debts and a fancy woman in London. You think you have married one man and he turns out to be someone else.
This time will be different. A doctor’s wife. If only I can stop him marrying that flibbertigibbet.
SCENE FOURTEEN END OF LIFE
ESTHER How did I get so old? Give me a cigarette.
Actors ‘smoke’.
ESTHER In Bucharest the oil runs through the streets. Daddy takes me to Germany to look at the clothes we will buy for our shops. I speak German. I want to go to Germany. Why can’t I run his business for him in Bucharest? Why must I stay in the Manchester house and watch the rain for sixty years. In England the fog is so thick I can’t see my hand in front of me. I can walk and walk and nobody will find me. I want to run away from mother and father and the men wanting my dowry. But I have no money. What can I do?
She looks at the’ smokers’.
Granddaughter. If you can’t get Peter Stuyvesant, get anything. I need to relax. I need to stop thinking about the man who sold shoelaces when he was a boy. Why can’t I call him my husband? For God’s sake he’s been dead twenty years.
EMANUEL I have to ask you.
ESTHER What?
EMANUEL I want a divorce.
ESTHER What??
EMANUEL I met a woman. She makes me feel alive.
ESTHER And I make you feel dead?
EMANUEL My last chance?
ESTHER And me?
EMANUEL I am sorry.
ESTHER Liar. If you were sorry you would not ask.
EMANUEL Please!
ESTHER I am an old woman
EMANUEL I don’t want to be an old man
ESTHER We have children. Grandchildren.
EMANUEL Please?
ESTHER (ignores him)
My girls, my darling girls. Isabel so pale, she must be ill. Edith
so busy with her boys, so busy teaching, Pearl so far away in New Orleans. Granddaughter write to her will you.
PEARL I am walking. It is hot in the French Quarter but I have to get away from him. From the house, the washing machine, the dishwashing machine, the plates, the sheets, the endless meals and the children. I have to be alone.
Look at all those big houses on St Charles Avenue. The houses of the slave owners. The houses of the rich. Did they sell their cotton to Manchester? The big houses in Manchester are they also from slave money?
ESTHER There’s an aerogramme in the drawer and a pen. Write to Pearl. How is she? What is she doing? How are the children? Her husband? Is she happy out there? No don’t write that.
PEARL Why are all those people waiting in a queue? Waiting in line? A concert. Preservation Hall. Grubby place that needs a scrub. I hear the singing across the wall
ESTHER And him, Always going somewhere without me. Weekends in Blackpool with his friends. That’s what he tells me.
PEARL Black men with voices that make me cry.
ESTHER He sneezes. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and out drops a contraceptive.
PEARL Look at that black man. Carrying a trombone. He looks at me and I want to ask
CHORUS Want to get some coffee? Maybe a drink?
PEARL Where would we go?
CHORUS A white woman and a black man?
PEARL What if you tell me your life?
CHORUS You want to know my life?
PEARL Why should you trust Mrs Whitey.
CHORUS What do you want?
PEARL A wife does not always think like her husband.
CHORUS Let the black man pull himself up by his bootstraps
PEARL I am not him.
ESTHER A contraceptive. What do I say? I say nothing. (Beat) Asking me for a divorce. Throw me aside like a used rag. Why did I marry him?
PEARL Let the black man pull himself up by his bootstraps Why did I marry him?
EMANUEL Give me a divorce.
ESTHER I am going back to eighteen. I will say yes to the old man. Then he will die and I will be free! I won’t be here with this shmuck asking me for a divorce. He humiliates me. He humiliates our lives. Why did I marry him?
PEARL Because he promises America!
CHORUS A new life.
EMANUEL It is my last chance.
PEARL A new world. I am so tired of the grey.
EMANUEL (shouting) Esther!
ESTHER (shouts) No.
EMANUEL (shouting) Esther!
ESTHER No!
EMANUEL (shouting) Esther!
ESTHER No. No. No!!
Emanuel howls
ESTHER For two years he is silent before his heart stops.
ISABEL Daddy!
ESTHER His penis is in the belly of the worms. And I am supposed to cry?
PEARL Mother is dying.
EDITH Mother is dying!
ISABEL Mother is dying!!
Isabel runs to the clothes heap and searches for sheets. She tries to fold them and
pack them away in a suitcase.
ISABEL Get the sheets. Fast. Before the others see.
ESTHER I am dying here. Who will help me?
She sits up.
You want to hear a joke?
Two men are waiting for a train. The younger man asks the older man for the time, but the older man ignores him.
ISABEL How did I get so old. Why am I in the hospital?
ESTHER After a while, the younger man again asks for the time and again the older man ignores him.
ISABEL How did I get here?
COMIC 1 Frustrated, the younger man finally asks, “Why won’t you answer me when I ask you for the time?” The older man sighs and explains:
COMIC 2 “Look, if I tell you the time, we’ll start to talk. Then when the train comes, you might sit down next to me.
ISABEL Did my son drive me? My son is sixty. Sixty! And I am only twenty-one.
COMIC 1 Perhaps we’ll get to know each other, and maybe I’ll eventually invite you to my house for Shabbat dinner.
ISABEL Mark is coming today. His wife is dead. He is free!
COMIC 2 Maybe then you and my daughter would really get along – why, you might even get engaged!
ISABEL We can get engaged!
COMIC 1 And why would I want a son-in-law who can’t even afford a watch?”
The cast laugh.
PEARL Will I die tonight? How many more breaths will I take?
EDITH I would like to kill myself but I can’t do that to my boys.
PEARL The war bride has leukaemia. Oh look there is a lizard. A tiny alligator.
Mummy look, there are mice everywhere. Oh no they are running all over my face. I want a cat. If I can’t have a doll, I must have a kitten. Not for me. For the mice.
EDITH My uniform still fits you know.
The women touching each other and the noise.
PEARL Come here little cat. Let me stroke you. Will I die tonight? Will you stay with me so I can feel your breath as you purr me away.
EDITH Who is that soldier? Tall and thin. She wears a Canadian air force flying jacket. There is something about her. At night, I see her in my head, Her smell, like cigar smoke, I like it.
Edith gets up and dances with the imaginary woman. She is wearing her apron.
Pearl dances. Thelonius Monk, Blue Monk. Start a 6 minutes 33 Seconds.
PEARL Will I die tonight? Where is the man with the trombone? I want to see this man. I am dancing with him. He is touching me. Very softly. Oh Mister, I like you so much.
Pearl gets up and dances with the imaginary man. The ensemble places tubes in Isabel’s arms. She is in bed.
ISABEL Mark! Mark! You are coming here now! I am not ready. My daughter must wash and set my hair. Powder my face. Put on my high heels. He must not see me like this. He must remember me young. They say I was like Vivien Leigh. Like Margot Fonteyn. Like Audrey Hepburn. My dimples! Where have they gone? Oh Mark (flirtatiously) have you come to see me? (Beat) No. I am a shrivel. Go away!
She pulls out her tubes. She gives them to Edith, Pearl and Esther.
There’s rosemary for you. There’s fennel for you.
Oh you must wear your rue with a difference
I would give you some violets…
And they will lay me in the cold cold ground.
Daddy!
SCENE FIFTEEN-KADDISH
Music is Dame Myra Hess’ interpretation of Jesu Joy of Man’s Desire which
is played while the male actor says kaddish.
KADDISH
Isabel takes the doll and, with difficulty passes it to Edith. Edith passes it to Pearl.
Pearl passes it to Esther.
Esther puts her arms around the three of them. The male actor looks at the women.
He is isolated from them. He gives each of them a small suitcase.
The two remaining actors take the sheet and cover the four women with it.
They are standing. When the sheet is placed around the bodies they drop to the ground.
They are buried with the doll.
The male actor recites kaddish as the music plays and lights
fade to
BLACKOUT
[1] Music Sofia Gubaidulina’s FairytalePoem.
[2] This is a parody of Humpty Dumpty, the English nursery rhyme.
[3] When the WW1 grenades were being cleaned, sometimes they went off killing the women.
[4] Copyright https://www.scribd.com/document/333280827/This-is-the-Army-Mr-Jones
[5] (Reference here is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy6AOGRsR80)
[6] From Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre.
Writer's credits
JULIA PASCAL PUBLICATIONS LIST
Bloomsbury
- 12-37
- A Dead Woman on Holiday
- Crossing Jerusalem
- Honeypot
- Nineveh
- Joan
- The Dybbuk
- The Golem
- The Shylock Play
- The Yiddish Queen Lear
- Theresa
- Woman in the Moon
- Woman on the Bridge
- Year Zero
Oberon Books
British Library
- Charlotte Bronte Goes to Europe
Virago
- Truth, Dare, or Promise
Faber and Faber
- Mythic/Real Women
- Issue Editor
- Pascal (Ed). Contemporary Theatre Review. An international journal. Women in Theatre. Vol 2 Part 3. (Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers,1995)
- Articles in books
- Pascal (Ed). ‘From Black Box To Open House: What Is Political Theatre?’ in The Secret Listeners
- (London: Pascal Theatre Company, 2013)
- Pascal ‘On Creativity and Anger’ in Contemporary Theatre Review. Women In Theatre. Volume 2.
- Part 3. (Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers,1995)
- Memoir
- Pascal ‘Prima Ballerina Assoluta’ in Truth, Dare or Promise (Liz Heron, Ed.; London: Virago,
- 1985). Reprinted in A Jewish Childhood. Editors Antony Kamm, A. Norman Jeffares (USA: Boxtree, 1988)
Academic
Jewish Historical Society of England
https://www.jhse.org/post/blackpool-jews