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    The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)
    The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)
    The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook188 pages1 hour

    The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Alexandra Wood

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Three women, forty years, one ever-evolving bond.
    Fake sick days, Stonehenge, roller skates, champagne and glow-in-the-dark stars.
    The Tyler Sisters is a funny, heartening exploration of time, and the unassuming moments that make up our lives. Alexandra Wood's innovative play explores the deep and unruly waters of sisterhood. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London, in December 2019.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateDec 31, 2019
    ISBN9781788503013
    The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Alexandra Wood

    Alexandra Wood is a UK playwright whose plays include: an adaptation of Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (Watermill Theatre, 2023); The Tyler Sisters (Hampstead Theatre, 2019); The Human Ear (Paines Plough, 2015); Ages (Old Vic New Voices); an English version of Manfred Karge's Man to Man (Wales Millennium Centre); Merit (Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2015); The Initiate (Paines Plough, 2014; winner of Scotsman Fringe First); an adaptation of Jung Chang's Wild Swans (ART/Young Vic); The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); The Centre (Islington Community Theatre); Decade (co-writer, Headlong); Unbroken (Gate Theatre, London, 2009); The Lion's Mouth (Royal Court Rough Cuts); The Eleventh Capital (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2007) and the radio play Twelve Years (BBC Radio 4). She is a winner of the George Devine Award (for The Eleventh Capital) and was the Big Room Playwright-in-residence at Paines Plough in 2013.

    Read more from Alexandra Wood

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      Book preview

      The Tyler Sisters (NHB Modern Plays) - Alexandra Wood

      1990

      GAIL. You didn’t even ask.

      KATRINA. It’s not your house.

      GAIL. My room, / not yours

      KATRINA. Not now.

      GAIL. Not your house either, much mine as it is yours so you need to know your place.

      KATRINA. Oh do I?

      GAIL. Why d’you think you can just take what you want?

      KATRINA. Because I can, I did.

      And you weren’t using it.

      GAIL. I was though, my stuff was in there, I was using it to store my stuff.

      KATRINA. Well I’m using it to sleep in, which trumps storing stuff, sorry.

      GAIL. Where am I supposed to sleep all summer?

      KATRINA. Wherever you want, you can sleep in my old room if you want, I don’t mind.

      GAIL. Don’t mind? That’s good of you, that’s really / generous.

      KATRINA. Does it really matter?

      GAIL. It’s my room, my place in the world.

      KATRINA. Your place in the

      A boxroom in your parents’ house. Have a little ambition Gail.

      GAIL. It isn’t the boxroom, yours is the boxroom.

      And I do have ambition, thank you. But for now, for now, that room is my place and you / can’t just

      KATRINA. You’ve got a room in Leeds.

      GAIL. No I don’t.

      KATRINA. Where d’you stay then?

      GAIL. Over the summer I don’t, not till September.

      KATRINA. Have mine till then, like I said.

      GAIL. What about Maddy’s? Why didn’t you take that?

      KATRINA. She’s in it.

      MADDY. I am in it, to be fair, I am actually in it.

      KATRINA. Would’ve been a bit much to be all, vacate your room now Maddy, I’m taking over.

      GAIL. But it’s okay to do it to me?

      KATRINA. Not the same, you weren’t even here.

      GAIL. We’ve established / that.

      MADDY. I don’t think it’s the same, Gail, you weren’t here.

      And we didn’t even know you were coming home this summer.

      GAIL. Yeah, well, sorry, I am, I have, sorry to screw up your plans.

      MADDY. What happened?

      GAIL. I just love you all so much I couldn’t stand to be away a moment longer.

      MADDY. That’s / nice.

      KATRINA. Right.

      GAIL. Just as well I did or you’d have Mum and Dad even more round your little finger. Didn’t they say you should ask me at least?

      KATRINA. Maybe, I don’t know, I just did it, I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal, but I should’ve remembered you like to overreact at the / slightest

      GAIL. I’m not / overreacting

      KATRINA. We thought you were in Leeds all summer, I was planning to come visit, but that’s gone out the window / now I guess.

      GAIL. Sorry to ruin your plans.

      KATRINA. S’alright, going to Newquay instead.

      GAIL. Who with?

      KATRINA. Friends.

      GAIL. Who?

      KATRINA. You don’t know them.

      GAIL. Do Mum and Dad know them?

      KATRINA. In what way?

      GAIL. Do they know who they are?

      KATRINA. Do any of us really know who we are Gail?

      GAIL. Alright, alright, so how will you feel when I take my room back when you’re in Newquay, how’d you think you’re going to like that?

      KATRINA. I won’t like it at all.

      GAIL. Yeah, that’s gonna suck for you, isn’t it.

      KATRINA. I’d suggest you don’t do that.

      GAIL. Really?

      KATRINA. Yeah, I’d suggest you leave my room well alone.

      GAIL. Oh really? That’s interesting that is, isn’t that interesting Maddy?

      MADDY. Um, I don’t know if I’d say it was interesting.

      GAIL. Yeah, no, I think that is. She can dish it out / but she

      MADDY. People say lots of things are interesting but they say it in a way that I don’t think they think it’s interesting, so it’s quite confusing.

      KATRINA. Interesting, Maddy.

      MADDY. Is it?

      KATRINA. No.

      MADDY. Oh. You see.

      KATRINA. I had sixteen years in that poky little box, it’s not fair, we should’ve swapped years ago.

      GAIL. You got here last, not our fault.

      KATRINA. Got here last? This isn’t camp, I didn’t get here late, I wasn’t born.

      GAIL. Camp? Don’t say camp.

      KATRINA. Back one minute and she’s already telling me what to say.

      GAIL. Don’t say camp like that’s a thing we do, a thing anyone we know does. I hate when people use American references they’ve blatantly just seen on TV.

      KATRINA. I have been to camp, we both have, Brownie camp, so screw you.

      GAIL. Are you going to apologise?

      KATRINA. For what? Reminding you you were a Brownie?

      GAIL. For stealing my room.

      KATRINA. Are you still going on about that?

      1991

      GAIL. They left me in charge.

      KATRINA. Maddy’s in charge and she doesn’t have a problem with it, do you?

      MADDY. I

      GAIL. They left both of us in charge.

      KATRINA. Maddy doesn’t have a problem with him.

      GAIL. Well I do.

      KATRINA. Is there anyone you don’t have a problem with?

      GAIL. Plenty of people.

      KATRINA. Who?

      GAIL. Maddy.

      KATRINA. Yeah coz Maddy doesn’t do anything / to upset you.

      GAIL. I don’t have a problem with you, it’s him.

      KATRINA. He’s my boyfriend, are you going to tell me who I can go out with now?

      GAIL. He’s not your boyfriend.

      KATRINA. Er, yes, he is.

      GAIL. You might think he’s your boyfriend / but he’s

      KATRINA. Fucking hell Gail, could you be more patronising?

      GAIL. I just see it / like it is.

      KATRINA. Coming from you. Coming from someone who can’t even get a boyfriend at university, where there are literally thousands of horny guys left right and centre and you can’t get one of them to / fuck you.

      GAIL. It’s not like that.

      KATRINA. So you can get one to fuck you?

      GAIL. He’s not staying over while I’m in charge.

      KATRINA. You’re not in charge, and he is.

      GAIL. Maddy, back me up here.

      MADDY. He is her boyfriend.

      KATRINA. Thank you.

      GAIL. Whatever you want to call him, he’s not staying over.

      KATRINA. We call him Mo. Since that’s his name and most people call people by their names.

      GAIL. Mo?

      KATRINA. You got a problem with that too now?

      GAIL. That for the Mohawk is it?

      KATRINA. Is that what offends you?

      GAIL. No, no, the drugs offend me Katrina, the drugs, not his hair.

      KATRINA. Weed? You’re offended by weed? What kind of student are you?

      GAIL. He does more than weed.

      KATRINA. Expert are you?

      GAIL. Do Mum and Dad let him stay?

      KATRINA. They like him.

      GAIL. Then they can’t know him.

      KATRINA.

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