Bowen - Close Quarters

Kate Bowen CLOSE
QUARTERS NICK HERN BOOKS London www.nickhernbooks.co.uk ContentsClose Quarters was produced by Sheffield Theatres and Out of Joint, and first performed at the Studio Theatre, Sheffield on 25 October 2018. The cast was as follows:

SERGEANT JOHN ADEYEMI, INFANTRY	Bradley Banton
PRIVATE SARAH FINDLAY INFANTRY	Ruby Barker
PRIVATE CLARE DAVIES INFANTRY	Sophie Melville
CAPTAIN ANNA SANDS INTELLIGENCE CORPS	Kathryn OReilly
PRIVATE ALISON CORMACK INFANTRY	Chloe-Ann Tylor
LANCE CORPORAL BRIAN ARMSTRONG, INFANTRY	Dylan Wood
Director	Kate Wasserberg
Designer	Max Jones
Lighting Designer	Sarah Jane Shiels
Composer and Sound Designer	Dyfan Jones
Casting Directors	Jenkins McShane Casting CDG
Fight and Movement Directors	Rachel Bown-Williams Ruth Cooper-Brown of RC-Annie Ltd.
Dramaturg	Catriona Craig
Associate Designer	Ruth Hall
Assistant Director	Jesse Haughton-Shaw
Production Manager	Stephanie Balmforth
Stage Manager	Katie Bosomworth
Deputy Stage Manager	Bethan Dawson
Assistant Stage Manager	Hannah Birtwistle-Crossland

Authors NoteClose Quarters is the first full length play of mine to be produced and has been a collaborative effort. I owe a lot to the weighty talents of Kate Wasserberg and Catriona Craig, who challenged, inspired and worked with me tirelessly to create a script that I wouldnt have made in this way without their combined energies and wisdom. I want to thank them for the patience, support and knowledge theyve given me and the play. During the time of writing, the British army had only just opened up ground close combat infantry roles to women, and this is a work of fiction imagining a time in the future, the first tour of duty for three female recruits.

The job of the infantry is to close with and kill the enemy, often at close quarters. The British government making the decision that women could apply to do the job was a controversial one. But the way the public debate about the decision was conducted revealed more about the ongoing misunderstandings in our culture of what it is to be female than it did about the merits of the decision itself. Right or wrong, or somewhere in between the conversation about the decision informs the play but doesnt drive it. What in fact fuels the play is my deep interest in the individual women. Kate BowenCharacters PRIVATE SARAH FINDLAY, infantry, early twenties PRIVATE ALISON CORMACK, infantry, early twenties LANCE CORPORAL BRIAN ARMSTRONG, infantry, early twenties PRIVATE CLARE DAVIES, infantry, early twenties SERGEANT JOHN ADEYEMI, infantry, late twenties CAPTAIN ANNA SANDS, Intelligence Corps, late thirtiesNote on TextA dash () indicates a hesitation.A forward slash (/) indicates one character is being interrupted by another.This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.Prologue2032. FINDLAY is standing in a pool of light on a dark stage. Kate Bowen Characters PRIVATE SARAH FINDLAY, infantry, early twenties PRIVATE ALISON CORMACK, infantry, early twenties LANCE CORPORAL BRIAN ARMSTRONG, infantry, early twenties PRIVATE CLARE DAVIES, infantry, early twenties SERGEANT JOHN ADEYEMI, infantry, late twenties CAPTAIN ANNA SANDS, Intelligence Corps, late thirties Note on Text A dash () indicates a hesitation. A forward slash (/) indicates one character is being interrupted by another. This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed. Prologue 2032. FINDLAY is standing in a pool of light on a dark stage.

She is wearing combat uniform though its too dark to tell which rank.She looks towards a doorway, stage left, from which a sliver of light is shining. FINDLAY. Id never even heard of Estonia before we got sent there. I expect theyd no heard a whole lot about Greenock. Thats near Glasgow. In Scotland. Youse can google it later.

Estonias got this border, with Russia, its three-hunner kilometres long but its no exactly been agreed. Theyre no exactly in agreement about where it is starts, finishes, that kinda thing. We was there to reassure our allies. Were very reassuring, the British infantry. In actual fact, we was a tripwire. No one wanted anything to kick off. No NATO.

No the Russians. But if it did, we would just stop them rolling unchallenged into Estonia. Cos the thing about the Russian army is theres hunners of them. Really, a lot. And bear in mind, this is after Trump pulled out. Nice image that.

Our first tour of duty, we were fresh out of training. Fresh meat. Wee Alison Cormack This gallus big lad Brian Armstrong. Hard man on the surface, soft as a doughnut underneath. Some wild Welsh woman with the filthiest mind on the planet. Our Sergeant, a London geezer, first Id ever met.

Best Id ever meet. An me. Side by side in a platoon of twenty-five men. McLeish was top dog he was a hard man. Impressive guy, an smart, an he never let his guard down. Dont fuck with him.

Follow his lead, that kinda guy. Best pals with OConnor who was, basically, a sociopath. Totally unpredictable. And with no fear whatsoever. Of anything. Except cling film.

Hated the old cling film, did OConnor. She shifts her gaze, looking into the middle distance. I was ten when I first met her. Ten years old. She was on a bike wearing this ludicrous outfit of tutu an trackies an those plastic wee jelly shoes. Shes trying to do tricks but shes no Danny MacAskill. She catches me watching, an for a second I realise I must a been sneering or looking disdainful you know, cos for a wee moment she looks hurt but then it vanishes, melts away that look an she grins You want a shot? I go Im no dressed daft enough.

Testing her. Shes still grinning: Your clobber looks stupit enough tay me. I look down, Im wearing head-to-toe Nike. I go over, she haunds me the bike. And Ive watched the boys do it an Im a quick learner so I start bouncing the wheels around an doing beginner tricks in no time. And I know how this can go down.

Im already better than she is on her own gear, shell probably no like that but But shes just Youre amazing show me how. After that we pretty much did everything together. An I knew it was the real deal when she followed me up a mountain. We was thirteen. I was The smartest lassie in the class, an the only black person in a sea of white folk. (Its no very multicultural Greenock.) So I was Navigating, negotiating, firefighting.

Surviving just. And the only teacher Cormack an I had with an ounce of sense took us up a mountain when we was thirteen. Told us we could survive up there if we wanted, if we learnt. Small squad of us. We all loved it. That woman showed us more in a day You get the picture.

That was it fay me. I wanted to learn to survive a mountain. Or a desert. Or a war.
Cos up there doesnay matter where your Da was fay, when youre fighting your way through a gale force eight. And wee Alison Cormack, she didnay just follow me up a mountain, she followed me