Rory Mullarkey - Rory Mullarkey plays: 1

Remarkable. ReviewsGateRory Mullarkeys original stage plays include Pity and The Wolf From The Door (Royal Court Theatre, London), Saint George and the Dragon (Royal National Theatre, London), Cannibals and Single Sex (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Each Slow Dusk (Pentabus Theatre/UK Tour), The Grandfathers (National Theatre Connections, then Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre) and On The Threshing Floor (Heat & Light Company at Hampstead Theatre). His adaptations/translations include The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (Bristol Old Vic/Manchester Royal Exchange), The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Shakespeares Globe) and Remembrance Day by Aleksey Scherbak (Royal Court). Rory has written the libretti for The Skating Rink by David Sawer (Garsington Opera), Coraline by Mark-Anthony Turnage (Royal Opera House) and The Way Back Home by Joanna Lee (English National Opera). He has won the Pearson Bursary for the Royal Exchange Theatre (2011), the Harold Pinter Commission for the Royal Court Theatre (2014), the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright (co-winner, 2014), the James Tait Black Prize for Drama (2014) and the Abraham Woursell Prize (co-winner, 2017). Other plays by the same author The Oresteia (adapted from the original by Aeschylus) Pity Saint George and the Dragon The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov in a translation by Rory Mullarkey) Other collections National Theatre Connections 2012: Plays for Young People METHUEN DRAMA Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, METHUEN DRAMA and the Methuen Drama logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc This collection published in Great Britain 2018 Single Sex first published in this collection by Methuen Drama 2018 Copyright Rory Mullarkey, 2018 Tourism first published in this collection by Methuen Drama 2018 Copyright Rory Mullarkey, 2018 Cannibals first published by Methuen Drama 2013 Copyright Rory Mullarkey, 2013 The Wolf From The Door first published by Methuen Drama 2014 Copyright Rory Mullarkey, 2014 Each Slow Dusk first published by Methuen Drama 2014 Copyright Rory Mullarkey, 2014 Rory Mullarkey has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

Cover image Chloe Lamford All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the work are hereby granted and performance rights for any performance/presentation whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners.

All rights whatsoever in these plays are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before rehearsals by professionals and by amateurs to Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Ltd, Waverley House, 712 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ (). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Contents I spent most of 2008 living in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where, shortly after my arrival, I bought an overpriced and underpowered desktop PC from a bazaar and sat for several weeks hunched in anxious agony over an open blank document, trying to have an idea for the kind of exotic masterpiece of exile I imagined writers wrote in places like that, until I finally gave up and went outside. Contents I spent most of 2008 living in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where, shortly after my arrival, I bought an overpriced and underpowered desktop PC from a bazaar and sat for several weeks hunched in anxious agony over an open blank document, trying to have an idea for the kind of exotic masterpiece of exile I imagined writers wrote in places like that, until I finally gave up and went outside.

I didnt write a word for the rest of the year the best year of my life but I still intended to start my magnum Kyrgyz opus as soon as I got home to England. So I was surprised when the idea that showed up on my return was for practically the most English thing possible: a play about all-boys grammar schools called Single Sex. It was the first play Id written since university, so I abandoned the slightly unhinged, comic meanderings of my student stuff and went instead for my own young approximation of the serious, realist, thesis-driven style in which I thought proper adult playwrights were supposed to write. The first draft took a long time, and when it was finished I sent it to the director Lyndsey Turner, who correctly described it as boring. She suggested I have another go, and let myself off the leash a bit more, so I started from scratch, ushered the comic back in again, tilted the pace and the energy so the scenes almost tripped over into one another, and added a Greek Chorus because I thought it was cool. I sent the subsequent draft to the Royal Court Theatre in London, who, in return, gave me an attachment (a small but desperately needed bit of money and a small but desperately needed bit of time in a very small office) to work on the play.

While I was there I met the playwright Simon Stephens, who sent the play to Sarah Frankcom, who ran the Royal Exchange in Manchester, where I grew up. When I was a kid the words The Theatre, both physically and conceptually, meant the Royal Exchange, so I was over the moon when they agreed to read the play, and even more so when they put me forward for a Pearson Bursary to be writer-in-residence there in 2011/12. I moved back to Manchester, and spent my time reading every book in the Literary Department, watching Sarahs production of A View from the Bridge fourteen times, and generally wandering around the building grinning bewilderedly. My life as a writer up until that point had mostly consisted of sitting in cold flat-shares in my pyjamas, so it was invigorating to finally feel part of the organism of a working theatre. Sarah directed Single Sex in the Royal Exchange Studio in summer 2011, with a cast of graduand students from the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre, and the care and psychological acuity with which she brought my people-made-out-of-words to full, three-dimensional life has informed and inspired every writing process Ive undertaken since. Meanwhile Id been invited onto the Royal Courts hilariously named Writers Supergroup, and was determined to use the opportunity to write my long-deferred play about Kyrgyzstan.