The Sugar Wife (NHB Modern Plays)

By Elizabeth Kuti

Love, lust, prostitution and slavery in a 19th-century Quaker household.
Winner of the 2006 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
A devout Quaker, her wealthy husband, a freed American slave and her emancipator come together in 1840s Dublin. As they interact, each is revealed to be rather less high-minded than they would like to be thought.
'Marvellous... intelligent and affecting' - Sunday Tribune
'A moving play whose themes of charity, colonialism and morality resonate deeply' - Guardian
'A consistently intelligent and beautifully shaped play' - Irish Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: May 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781780017846

Elizabeth Kuti

Elizabeth Kuti is a playwright and winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, whose work includes The Sugar Wife (Soho Theatre) and The Six-Day World (Finborough Theatre). She is also Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Essex.

Book preview

The Sugar Wife was produced by Rough Magic and first performed at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, on 08 April 2005. The cast was as follows:

For George and Susan Kuti

and for Robert, always, with love

Characters

HANNAH TEWKLEY, a Quaker

SAMUEL TEWKLEY, Hannah’s husband, founder of Tewkley’s Tea and Coffee Merchants, Dublin

ALFRED DARBY, an ex-Quaker, originally from Yorkshire

SARAH WORTH, a former slave from Georgia

MARTHA RYAN, a woman from Dublin

The action of the play takes place in Dublin, from 8th January to 20th March, 1850.

All the Quaker Meeting scenes take place on the evening of 20th March, during the Wednesday Midweek Meeting.

Scene One

20th March, 1850. Wednesday evening. The Quaker Meeting-House in Dublin.

A silent Meeting is taking place. Among those present are HANNAH and SAMUEL TEWKLEY, SARAH WORTH and ALFRED DARBY.

HANNAH. Thy servant waits in darkness, in this silent assembly of souls, waits, for a sign, oh Seed of Light, a sign, this bitter cup before me –

SAMUEL. – and in this shortness of life – to be flung together as two creatures – to have the chance to love and create and to throw it away, to pour it away – Used to think what else is there in life but to forgive each other? Over and over. The only good we can ever do. But now, I don’t know, I don’t know –

HANNAH. – what could pull us back from this dark tunnel, he asks, because I see no end, and it frightens me – But Samuel – I refused her – I refused – how many times?

SAMUEL. When I think of her, taking and taking and when did she give to me, when were her eyes turned towards me? Hannah. Hannah.

HANNAH. Standing there with an alphabet in my hand while she – Oh Seed of Light, oh Christ, oh Seed sown in the heart, I leap, I struggle, but the waves, the waves overwhelm me – Even with her face still covered, even as I reached to pull back the sheet, I knew it was too late, I knew –

SAMUEL. Would I be glad? Would I be relieved? For both of us – To admit defeat – to call a halt – to put down this burden? Has she – brought me to the narrow limits of what love I have? Has she found me out? Thy achievement, Hannah.

HANNAH. But tomorrow is the equinox – the equinox of spring – 21st day of Third Month, neither the longest nor the shortest day but an equal measure of day and night; then could that be – a sign to thy creatures? – some green sprig coming in our winter or like Eleventh Month last year, out in the garden, Samuel and me, when we heard the cuckoo call and saw the bud coming on the gooseberry bush – even in the midst of winter –

Scene Two

8th January, 1850. MARTHA and HANNAH in MARTHA’s room.

MARTHA. It’s you.

HANNAH. Yes.

MARTHA. Didn’t think I’d see you again. They don’t usually come more than once.

HANNAH. Who?

MARTHA. The ones like yourself. The Soup Ladies. Afraid they’ll catch something.

HANNAH. Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any soup. Not on me.

MARTHA. How did you get here, walking?

HANNAH. Yes, I was on my way home.

MARTHA. You shouldn’t be walking around here on your own, not looking like that.

HANNAH. I know this part of town. My father kept a chandler’s shop in Meath Street. I’ve walked round here all my life. And anyway, I wanted – There was something I wanted to give thee.

MARTHA. What? A present?

HANNAH. Yes. In a way.

MARTHA. Is that it?

HANNAH. Yes. Go on. Open it.

MARTHA (not touching it). Can I open it when you’ve gone? I like having something to look forward to.

HANNAH. I might need to explain what it is.

MARTHA. In a bit then. Well, a social call, that’s lovely.

HANNAH. Where are the snowdrops from?

MARTHA. The boy downstairs. I think he’s bit thick or something. I give him a sweet last week, just for Christmas, like, and now he keeps bringing me things.

HANNAH. They smell of spring.

MARTHA. What, in January? Jesus, don’t make me laugh, they smell of graveyards. I keep telling him, there’s no more sweets, no matter how many snowdrops you bring me, but he won’t give up.

HANNAH. Hope springs eternal.

MARTHA. Does when you’re four.

HANNAH. Well, I think spring is coming.

MARTHA. It’ll come all right, try stopping it.

HANNAH. I think thy strength is returning. I think thy life is waiting to be lived. That’s why I came because I wanted to tell thee. I want to help.

MARTHA. What sort of help?

HANNAH. I don’t know but – The only sin from which we cannot be saved is to give up hope.

MARTHA. I’ve seen what hope does to you if you give in to it. I used to see them coming back in to the asylum.

HANNAH. See who?

MARTHA. The ones readmitted. They were always the worst. They’d leave the asylum cured, not a trace of the sickness on them, and in a few months they’d be back, raving, and sometimes half their face missing. I saw a girl come back in once with no nose, and wrong in the head. And six weeks earlier you’d have sworn she was cured.

HANNAH. I know.

MARTHA. No you don’t.

HANNAH. It is a terrible disease.

MARTHA. I should have gone to America. I should have gone with my sister.

HANNAH. What stopped thee?

MARTHA. I’m a stupid cow, I’m scared of drowning. And there was only enough money for one ticket. She said she’d send the rest for me later.

HANNAH. There has been no word?

MARTHA. No. But then she can’t write and I can’t read. Don’t know what we were thinking. Some kind of miracle.

HANNAH. Well, there is something we could mend. I will teach thee to read.

MARTHA. To read?

HANNAH. It’s