Tusk Tusk is the play I’d like to propose to the class
written by Polly Stenham. It is a “very heavyweight drama” said by the
Guardian. Polly wrote this play at the age of 22 and it is the second play
she’s written, to whom is dedicated to her sister, which has been premiered at
the Royal Court Theatre in March 2009. A family of three middle-class children
have been left alone at their new London flat, surrounded by unpacked boxes.
Their father is dead, and their mentally unstable mother has a habit of disappearing;
she has gone for more than a week. Her three children, Eliot, who turns 16 in
the course of the play, Maggie, 14, and their younger brother Finn, 7, have
mobile phones which they check anxiously and constantly as they wait for their
mother’s return. The play explores the themes of friendship, family, solidarity,
solitude, isolation, childhood, responsibility, independence, survival, mental
illness, black comedy, coping mechanisms, the verge of adolescence, parenting,
absenteeism, themes and issues that are equalising across the social classes,
rejection, fear, denial, confrontation. Although the play is quite dark and the
class have to be serious to get in touch with the emotions of each character, I
think that it would be fun and quite laid back to perform. Some parts of the
play are dark and sentimental whereas other parts are witty and joyful. The
casting for the play consists of 7 characters: Eliot, Maggie, Finn, Cassie,
Katie, Roland and Man from upstairs, however, it is possible to cut it down to
only 6 characters by removing the character Finn (if needed). Also, there is
only one set and that is the living room. On set there would be a couch, a coffee
table, many boxes piled on top of each other and scattered around the room, and
a mobile phone. As you can tell the staging is very minimal and the three main
characters are on stage throughout (unless stage directions say otherwise).
Considering this is a published play, there is already a script written however
if actors don’t feel comfortable speaking profanely then it is possible to go
over the script and change the words or simply cross it out. In addition, there
are two Acts with four scenes in Act One and seven scenes in Act Two however,
in order to make this play a decent duration of an hour, we are able to cut out
some scenes which we might find irrelevant or shorten scenes to fit the time. I
chose this play because reading through it made me love what the relationships
between the characters and I performed the last scene for my GCSE Drama exam
and didn’t get the chance to do the rest of the play because it was too long.
Hopefully, if my play gets chosen, I am able to do so.
This idea links to my essay as it is based on naturalism and
non-naturalism and this play is naturalistic and modern.
