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    Grotty (NHB Modern Plays)
    Grotty (NHB Modern Plays)
    Grotty (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook104 pages50 minutes

    Grotty (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Izzy Tennyson

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    About this ebook

    An unflinching play from exciting new writer and performer, Izzy Tennyson.
    Grotty is a dark and savage exploration of the London lesbian scene. A couple of little sad old basements that drip with sweat and piss, with second-hand noise pulsating from some gay-boy night upstairs. The women sit there in their uniformed black… and they are looking at you. They are not nice girls. But Grotty is not a nice story.
    The piece was premiered by Damsel Productions at The Bunker, London, in May 2018.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateMay 25, 2018
    ISBN9781788500500
    Grotty (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Izzy Tennyson

    Izzy Tennyson is a writer and performer whose work includes Grotty (The Bunker, London, 2018); Brute (winner of the 2015 IdeasTap Underbelly Award; Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Soho Theatre, 2016); Runts (Brighton Fringe Festival 2016); and Career Boy (London Raindance Festival 2015).

    Read more from Izzy Tennyson

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      Book preview

      Grotty (NHB Modern Plays) - Izzy Tennyson

      Prologue

      RIGBY. Are you turned on by mental-health issues in people? Is that really bad? Like fancying someone with cancer? Is that really bad? Is that bad?… (Pause.) It probably is. When does depression stop being depression and starts being a predominant part of your personality?… (Pause.) I lock myself in toilets at parties because I’m like that. I cry on trains because I’m like that. I’m just like that, that’s Rigby… (Pause.) Do people who take the jump enjoy the fall before they hit the ground? Because I’m constantly finding myself standing on edges of buildings. Not intentionally, I don’t think. I don’t know.

      Her phone drops out of her pocket. It hits the floor. Lights snap up when the phone starts ringing, to reveal WITCH and TOAD beside her. RIGBY picks up the phone and turns it off to stop the ringing.

      Now when you go clubbing – (Wipes nose on sleeve.) I mean straight you or gay-boy you – (Wipes nose on sleeve again.) and you want a fuck, or not a fuck – (Looks at sleeve, Jesus the stuff has spread everywhere.) you want a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you know, someone who gives a shit about your existence on a deeper level, you’re not just in the room, you are the pivotal point in the room, in the club, in London, in the world, you know?

      She plays with her sweaty fringe as if in preparation for going somewhere.

      Now unless you’re not some sad retard that grew up on a farm, you know what to do. Don’t you? You walk in, you see a guy at the bar, eyes meet, you get a drink, pretend that you’re having a great time even though you ramble the same old recycled conversations like they’re classics. Then he shouts in your ear, something painfully predictable and uninspiring and it doesn’t throttle your world, but still, it’s exciting. Actually no, that does throttle your world in that moment, and for the rest of the week. That’s the sad thing. And from there this happens, and from there this happens. You know. You know the way it goes. Because you’re a normal fucking person.

      RIGBY’s phone starts ringing again. This prompts TOAD and WITCH into action.

      TOAD (to WITCH). What are you doing with Rigby?

      WITCH (to RIGBY). You know Maisy?

      TOAD. What are you doing with Rigby?

      WITCH (to RIGBY). How do you know Maisy?

      Lights snap down again, just RIGBY. Phone snaps off.

      RIGBY. Now if you’re unlucky enough to turn out to be a sad little lesbo, like me, none of this applies. None of this applies. Everything I learnt from being a normal person in my earlier life, with you know, ‘sleeping with men’ goes out of the fucking window because lesbians are not normal. Fact. And I’ve only just come out, like for five seconds, and it doesn’t take me long to realise how shit it is.

      Phone goes.

      TOAD. Oh God you’re not –

      WITCH. What?

      TOAD. Fucking her are you?

      TOAD laughs.

      WITCH. Why are you laughing?

      TOAD. It’s funny.

      WITCH. What is?

      TOAD. You’ll laugh when I tell you.

      WITCH. What is it?

      TOAD. It’s hilarious really.

      TOAD grins at RIGBY. RIGBY is desperately trying to turn her phone off but it’s proving diffcult this time.

      WITCH. What is it then?

      WITCH looks at RIGBY for an answer but RIGBY isn’t looking at them. She can’t turn off the phone.

      And who’s that?

      RIGBY turns the phone off and with that the lights snap off. There’s a shift in atmosphere. TOAD and WITCH have gone. RIGBY is alone with us.

      RIGBY. So. Welcome to the desert. The London lesbian scene, a couple of sad old basements that drip with sweat and piss. You have three options. Three different basements. Basement one. Soho. Shithole. We all sit down there, hearing second-hand pulsating noise of some gay-boy night coming from upstairs. They are having a great time. I can feel their sweat and pre-cum sink and drip through the basement ceiling. And we all sit there, looking up at it. (Shouts at the ceiling.) I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING FUN UP THERE YOU SELFISH POOFS!

      R&B starts playing.

      What is it with R&B and lesbians? They always play it, they pump it in like it will make up for the lack of testosterone. It’s horrible. So the room is filled with a mixture of business women with Justin Bieber haircuts – (Points.) saggy-boobed bloke types – (Points.) baby-gay northern lesbians that have come over on some awful mini-rugby-league tour, and – (Points.) your fucked-up-on-some-sort-of-drug, pyjama-bottomed, dry old hippy, with a mohawk. That she’s shaved herself. She’s foreign. Actually not always gay, just lost and wanting a good ‘vibe’. Then you have a gaggle of straight tourists who treat G-A-Y Late very much as the Victorian general public treated Bedlam as venue for their entertainment.

      Basement two. The queer scene. ‘Edgy’ drag nights and feminist talks with insufferable ‘queer’ – (Fake coughs.) straight girls, normally Goldsmith graduates. They put on an array of terrible ‘queer’ performances that scream ‘I was the quirky one at Marylebone College for Young Ladies.’ Aka live art. Sorry did I mention all these ‘queer’

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