Kemp - 5/11

Edward Kemp 5/11 NICK HERN BOOKS
London
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk 5/11 was commissioned by and first performed at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 12 August 2005, with the following cast:

CECIL	Hugh Ross
CATESBY	Stephen Noonan
SOUTHWELL	Brendan OHea
ARCHBISHOP	Steven Beard
TOPCLIFFE	David Langham
KING JAMES	Alistair McGowan
QUEEN ANE	Annette McLaughlin
LENNOX	Aleksandar Mikic
LADY IN WAITING	Claire Parrish
THOMAS PERCY	Graham Turner
NORTHUMBERLAND	Raad Rawi
TRESHAM	Tom Silburn
MONTEAGLE	John Ramm
BROMLEY	Christian Bradley
ANNE VAUX	Fiona Dunn
MARTHA PERCY	Anna Francolini
EDWARD PERCY	Ollie Porter
HENRY GARNET	Richard OCallaghan
SUFFOLK	Alexia Healy
WINTER	Mark Meadows
LIZZIE	Kay Curram
ELLESMERE	Brendan OHea
SOMERSET	Kieran Hill
JACK WRIGHT	Grant Anthony
KIT WRIGHT	Gary Milner
GUY FAWKES	Daniel Abelson
Director	Steven Pimlott
Designer	Ashley Martin-Davis
Lighting Designer	Chris Ellis
Sound Designer	Matt McKenzie
Composer	Jason Carr
Movement Director	Toby Sedgwick

Introduction 5/11 is a fiction based on an event that did not take place. The absence of an event the King and Government did not fall victims to a terrorist attack in 1605 makes this particular cornerstone of English history even shakier than most and means that the Powder Plot (as it was known in its day) has been the subject of almost every imaginable conspiracy theory since, well, Tuesday afternoon, November 5th 1605. The only incontrovertible fact anyone can agree on is that thirteen men and two Jesuit priests were killed or executed in 1606 for their involvement in an alleged conspiracy to blow up the Palace of Westminster the previous year. Everything else is up for grabs. Whose orders were they acting on? How did they gain access to the Palace? Who supplied the gunpowder? Was there any gunpowder? Each of these questions will lead the researcher into a thicket of speculation, biased narratives and paper trails that break off abruptly. An objective historian needs to acknowledge these unstable foundations; the dramatist requires something he can build on.

This account of the last moments of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the first years of King James is my own, it makes small claim to documentary, nor is it entirely fanciful. I know pretty well what Ive invented and where Ive used dramatic licence to conflate or compress action too complicated or prolix to stage. The characters nearly all have at least one foot in historical truth and many quote their historical models. Their actions too are largely based on what one can glean in the cracks between the various shades of bias in the accounts. Where their motivations are ambivalent I have endeavoured to preserve and dramatise this uncertainty. What interests me as much as the activities of a group of thirteen young men in 1605 are the recurring patterns which may link them to nineteen young men in 2001, or four young men in 2005, or thirteen young men in the early years of the first millennium, or any number of the disillusioned or the dispossessed who have chosen to use religion to bind themselves together in blood.

The very unreasonableness of faith, which can be its great glory in speaking truth to power, has too often made its own assertions of authority particularly barbaric. Christianitys peculiar success in conquering pain and death, turning defeat in this world into transcendent victory, has led certain strands of the faith into an obsession with these two human absolutes and with martyrdom as the highest witness to Gods presence in the world. The very imperviousness to suffering that the early Christians showed in the arena before the lions and which so impressed the Romans that they embraced the religion as their own is what we now find so frightening in the face of the jihadi . 5/11 attempts to dramatise a story of ambivalent motives, of actions and words intentionally or unintentionally obscure, of equivocation, interpretation and misinterpretation, of the impact of faith on pain and charisma upon authority, played out in a country trying to find an identity for itself in a world where the border between religion and the state is being redrawn. I am grateful to Chichester Festival Theatre for commissioning this play when it was little more than a title, to Steven Pimlott for his insight and guidance during the writing of it and the expertise and bravura he has brought to the staging, to an indomitable company of actors, many of whom accepted parts which were barely sketched, and to my family who have endured my obsession. Edward Kemp
Chichester, July 2005 Playing Notes Scene and act divisions are, to an extent, arbitrary.

The play should run almost seamlessly in two halves, allowing maximum collision and interplay between its many facets. It is neither wholly in earnest nor entirely playful. Its language is predominantly modern though laced with many different Englishes whether its staging should also be modern I do not know. It can be played by any number of actors, but ideally at least thirteen. An oblique slash (/) indicates the point of entry of the next speaker. The absence of a full stop indicates either that the next speaker interrupts or, if there is no capital letter beginning the next speech, that there is a continuous flow of thought amongst speakers.

Italicised Latin text is intended to be sung. The Burning Babe Robert Southwell As I in hoary winters night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his
tears were fed.
Alas, quoth he, but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are mens defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas Day. from St Peters Complaint , 1595 Characters JAMES, King of Scotland, then Britain
ANE, his wife
ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury ( Lol )
Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND ( Harry
Earl of LENNOX ( Es
Baron ELLESMERE, Lord Treasurer
Lord SOMERSET, Lord Admiral
Sir Robert CECIL, Secretary to the Privy Council
Sir Richard TOPCLIFFE, Chief Justice
Dicky
Katherine SUFFOLK, a lady of the English court
BROMLEY, a Pursuivant
William MONTEAGLE
LIZZIE Monteagle, his wife
Francis TRESHAM, her brother