Run (NHB Modern Plays)

By Stephen Laughton

Stephen Laughton's one-man play explores what it means to love, to lose, and how to grow from a boy into a man, as a gay Jewish kid sneaks out over Shabbat to meet his boyfriend - and his universe implodes.
Run was selected for the 2016 VAULT Festival, London. It is also available in the volume Plays from VAULT.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Feb 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781780017235

Stephen Laughton

Stephen Laughton is a playwright whose work includes: One Jewish Boy (Old Red Lion, London, 2018); Run (VAULT Festival, London, 2016; The Bunker, London, 2017); Nine (part of the PlayWROUGHT#3 Festival at the Arcola Theatre, 2015); and Marina Abramovic is Staring at Me (Terra Firma Theatre's 2011–12 Boxcar Reading Series at the Railroad Playhouse in Newburgh, New York, then Cell Theatre, Manhattan). His work for television includes Forward (Blacklisted Films) and Black Hill (Lime Pictures).

Book preview

‘Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy’

Exodus, 20

Acknowledgements

For Oli, Lauren and Tom – working on this with you is the best. Ryan Forde Iosco and James Huntrods deserve a big THANK YOU for hooking us up in the first place, and also for the original Courting Drama platform and for all your support along the way. Matt and Sarah Liisa at Nick Hern Books for being cool about deadlines and typos. Tim and the VAULT Festival team for letting us in. My fellow Playdaters – Dave Ralf, Isley Lynn, Chris Adams, Poppy Corbett, Vinay Patel and Sarah Kosar for love, notes, empathy and understanding. My lovely agent Nick, and Laura and everyone at The Agency. Just because. Sue Teddern for keeping me off social media when I’m trying to skive. Sam, Lee, Rach, Dave the girl, Amy, Gary and Jack for putting up with my stress tantrums, cat sitting, radar drop-offs and general love. And Paul, and only partly for keeping me on top of my Hebrew. I love you.

S.L.

Run was first performed at VAULT Festival, London, on 10 February 2016, with the following cast:

Character

YONNI, seventeen

It’s chaos in the kitchen.

Yelling. Clatter… shit boiling over

Washing

Spinning…

A dog barking. We don’t even have a dog.

So I don’t even know what’s going on there.

Like it’s brown.

About yea big. Yappy.

Keeps looking at me.

I’m worried it’s hungry.

But it’s mainly jumping around my little brother Jesse, who’s grinning like a moron and mirroring the stupid thing.

And it’s the happiest I’ve seen him in months.

Which I guess is good.

And Devorah, my mother, pipes up from her prep every now

and then.

Kinda absently telling them to shut up.

And the whole thing is mainly weird.

Kind of adorable.

Somewhat confusing.

I lean down, rub the dog’s head, kind of warily.

Pop my bag on the chair.

Devorah proffers a hi love, absently asks about the day

There’s something too kind in her smile…

And the dog stares back.

With that look…

Head to one side… cocked…

It looks cute but basically means I wanna eat ya

And I’ve never seen it before. The dog.

We’re not allowed pets cos of my allergies apparently, and I can’t imagine a world where Devorah would even allow it in her kitchen. I’m not sure it’s kosher enough.

But it’s adding to this sense of chaos and because tensions already feel high today, and I’ve got this slow creeping anxiety tightening across my chest, and I just kinda want to go to bed really… I’m mainly too scared to ask why it’s here…

Jesse’s having fun though. Which from an IQ standpoint makes sense. And it’s nice the way my little spaz bro seriously just found himself a soulmate. He’s making some kind of Scooby Dooby ‘yes he is’ kind of noise at it. And basically looks special.

It’s Friday.

It’s February

It’s 4 p.m.

And amongst the scrum, the weekly pre-shabbat panic is officially in full