Dancing Bears (NHB Modern Plays)

By Sam Holcroft

The twisted loyalties and violence in teenage gangs is laid bare.
This play was originally published in the volume Charged, a collection of plays about the lives of women in the criminal justice system, and was commissioned and premiered by Clean Break, a theatre and education company working with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Jun 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780014487

Sam Holcroft

Sam Holcroft is a playwright, winner of the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature. Her plays include: A Mirror (Almeida Theatre, London, 2023); Rules for Living (National Theatre, London, 2015); The Wardrobe for National Theatre Connections; Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season in the Paintframe at the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009). In 2013, she wrote The House Taken Over, a libretto for opera, adapted from Cortázar, for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Académie Européenne de Musique. She received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013–14. In 2014, she received a Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the drama category.

Book preview

Sam Holcroft

DANCING BEARS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Characters

Dancing BearsSam Holcroft

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Dancing Bears was originally performed as part of Charged, a cycle of six plays produced by Clean Break and first performed at Soho Theatre, London, on 10 November 2010. The cast was as follows:

DANCING BEARS

Sam Holcroft

Characters

AARON, teenager, male

DEAN / RAZOR KAY, teenager, male / teenager, female

RETARD / CHARITY, teenager, male / teenager, female

ANGRY / BABYMOTHER, teenager, male / teenager, female

Three of the four actors will play both a male and female.

Setting

The stage floor is a bed of hot coals. The characters firewalk across the coals, stepping from foot to foot to distribute the pain. Different behaviours alleviate or aggravate the pain; sometimes the pain is acute, sometimes so subtle as to be almost imperceptible.

The floor is alive with red-hot coals.

AARON emerges out of the dark. He wears tracksuit trousers and a sweatshirt covering his head with its hood pulled up. He treads across the coals. It is clear they burn his feet through his shoes. He shuffles from foot to foot to distribute the pain. But his enthusiasm for football distracts from the pain.

AARON. The problem with the English is their lack of cooperation: instead of passing to each other, yeah, they hold the ball. I don’t know whether it’s the love of football that makes them see nothing but the football, or whether it’s something to do with the way we learn in schools. Because, like, in Brazil, even before you get to school, even if you don’t never go to school, you’ll be playing football on the streets as kids. But it’s different, it’s called Futsal there, and it’s not so