Cast list:
Hall- 55years old police sergeant.
Mary- 52 year old, civilian telephonist.
Robins- 35 years old police inspector.
Menon- 22 years old police constable.
Sadie- Robins’s ex-wife.
The Last Meeting
Scene 1.
The room is also the sergeant office, the waiting room, the source of the police station gossips. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Sergeant HALL is sitting behind his desk, reading the SUN newspaper’s headlines ‘GOTCHA’ of the Falkland war. The sun is shining through the window. MENON is sitting on the left side of Hall’s desk, he is waiting to be called for his last appraisal. MARY is sitting five feet away from MENON.
HALL STRECHES HIS ARMS ABOVE HIS HEAD, THEN LEANS FORWARD ON HIS ELBOW, MARVELLING AT NEWSPAPER’S HEAD LINES.
MARY: Mark the calendar yet?
HALL: (Scottish accent). First thing this morning and every
Morning.
MENON LOOKS AT MARY AND FROWNS.
MARY: He has been doing that since he became a police man. (PAUSE). Oh. How long is….donkey years.
HALL: To be exact thirty one years, four months and twelve days to go before my big day.
MARY: He is retiring.
MARY LOOKS AT HALL. THEY MADE EYES CONTACT.
MARY LOOKED AWAY.
MENON: You sound as if you have served a life sentence.
HALL: Oh HI. Laddie. You are right about that I wish that I have never joined the force. I should have been a plumber, an electrician or even a Rugby coach. Instead I wasted my life
In this thankless work. I must have been mad
MENON TOUCHES HIS TOP POCKET. HE HAS
ALREADY DECIDED TO RESIGN, HE DECIDES TO GO THROUGH THE GUANTLET OF THE APPRAISAL JUST FOR TO GIVE ROBINS A PIECE OF HIS MIND.
MENON: Why did you stay so long, if you were so unhappy?
HALL: Doing what! There is nothing after police work laddie. If you’re unlucky to get a policeman’s soul. (PAUSE) I mean if you believe in the police’s bible (Rules of law),you are in for life. On the other hand, if you become a uniform carrier, you have more choices.
MENON: Like what.
HALL: Taxi driver. Ambulance man. Double glazing sales man.
MENON TOUCHES HIS TOP POCKET. SMILES. FEW DAY BEFORE HIS APPRAISAL HE HAS BEEN OFFERED HIS OLD JOB BACK AS A PSYCHIATRIC NURSE.HE HAS NOT TOLD ANYBODY.
MENON: Surely, you’re going to miss the buzz, after so many years in the job/ oh him! (PAUSE) No chance for that.
MARY: He has his cup full of excitement.
HALL: I am going to travel the world with the missus, before the seven years kick in. MARY LOOKS DOWN. SHE TAKES OUT A TAPE FROM HER HANDBAG, PUT IT THE CASSETTE PLAYER.
MARY: Nonsense! (PAUSE) Do you still believe in the seven years itch?
MENON: Have I missed something?
Pause.
HALL: All retired police officers died with in seven years of retirement (PAUSE). The statisticians have proved it.
MARY PLAYS THE TAPE.
Pause.
HALL: Not that song / Jim! (PAUSE) shut up and listen!.
MARY: It’s a very beautiful song. (PAUSE). My son gave it to me. It calls ‘If you go away’ a translation from the French singer Jacque Brel’. Then what next! (PAUSE). That is if you don’t kick the bucket!
HALL: Oh! Going back to Scotland.
MARY: Doing what! Sheep’s shearing.
MENON: (NARRATING) The rumour must be true after all. The French writer is right when he said that ‘All love affairs at work are doomed to end in tear’.
HALL: Why not!
MENON: Sarge. Is it true, Robins is a hard man to please?
MARY: Hard man my foot! He is just a miserable, vindictive man and what the word. (PAUSE) Hatred of women.
HALL: A misogynist. But you’ll be all right / Of course he‘ll be all right.
MARY: You are only couple inches taller than him. Why do you think, we call him ‘Shorty’. You see the think carpet along the corridor to his office. Well, if you look closely, you could see the stains of women’ tear all over it.
HALL: Like I said, you don’t have to worry about your appraisal. Besides, I put a good for you in your file. Just be ‘Double D’ for couple hours.
MENON: Double D.
MARY: Deaf and Dumb! But be careful you don’t become a brown nose.(PAUSE) like somebody I used to know.
MARY SWITCHES THE TAPE RECORDER.MENON TOUCHES HIS TOP POCKET AND SMILES.HALL ROLLS HIS PEN OVER HIS FINGERS.
MENON: (NARRATING).What a way to earn a living. Life is too short to live like a sycophant. The Japanese writer is right when he said that ‘If you are happy to what you are doing every day, if you don’t have to do a day work in your life’
Pause.
HALL: He does not hate women, he just had a bad experience with
his ex wife.
MARY: Bad experience! My foot! If you ask me, he will die a very
lonely man.(PAUSE). Besides, he was not the first man whose wife makes a coc….(PAUSE), you know.
MENON: Have I missed something?
MARY: Oh! Have you not heard? Well, let me give the juicy bit. His wife left him for a Gypsy knife sharpener. She took everything in the house, including the kitchen sink. When shorty came back from work. He thought that his house was burgled, then he saw an envelope on the mantle piece. He opened it, she wrote ‘sir, go to hell’ signed Sandy.
MARY LAUGHS LOUDLY.HALL SMILES TO HIMSELF.
MENON: Did he/no too proud.
MARY: Instead, he fills his heart with hatred, especially against Gypsy, Women and Peddlers.
MENON: (NARRATING) Gossips! A world without gossips would be a very dull world.
Pause.
THE PHONE RINGS. HALL PICKS IT UP RIGHT AWAY.
HALL: Yes sir! Right away sir.
HALL PUT THEPHONE IN THE CRADLE.MARY LOOKS AT MENON AND FROWNS.
HALL: Shorty is ready for you.
MENON GETS UP, WALKS AWAY FROM THE WAITING ROOM.
MARY: Good luck.
HALL: He does not need it.
MARY: True, but you will need all the luck from the Haggis’s land!
Scene 2.
Robins is sitting behind his desk, there is a fat telephone book underneath
his cushion. His office is dimly light, the curtain is opened widely. A half
cigar in a ashtray. There is a frame of BA degree on the wall behind his
head. An open file in front of him, his two fat hands rest on it.
ROBINS SWITCHES HIS TAPE RECORDER.ARIA OFCARMINA BURUNA O FORTUNA BY CARL OFF DIES DOWN.HE FLIPS BRISKLY THE FIRST FEW PAGES FROM THE FILE.
ROBINS: Sit!
MENON: (NARRATING) This one is free, you pompous ass. At least a dog gets a biscuit for it.
ROBINS: This must be the worst record that I have ever read. Quite frankly I am confused (PAUSE). I don’t know whether you are a social worker or have you got the bottle to become a full fledge police constable.
MENON: The reason that you are confused is that you skips the few front pages on my file. If you had read them, you would learn that I have made twenty nine arrestable offences. Seventy five traffics offences and I was the very first police probationer to receive a thank you letter from a member of the public and as a result I received a commendation from the Chief Constable.
ROBINS: Listen! Listen to me! This commendation was a big mistake, it does not cut any ice with me. (PAUSE) I have earned it.
ROBINS: Don’t you interrupt me!
MENON: I am going to interrupt you whenever you talk rubbish.
ROBINS: Don’t even try to be disrespectful to me. You see, the two crowns on my shoulders, I earn those.
MENON: But respect has to be earned. I have earned mine, especially from the public and from the chief constable.
ROBINS LOOKS UP, HE STARED AT
MENON.THEY HOLD EYES CONTACT,WITHOUT EITHER BLINKS.
ROBINS: Well, let get on with it (PAUSE). I don’t have the time to waste on you. Tell me! Who give you the right to use your discretion in police matters?
MENON: I have no idea what you mean?
ROBINS: Are you that obtuse? (PAUSE) Why do you caution the drunks instead of reporting them? It’s not your decision to make
MENON: No, you are wrong. If you check the last instruction, it is written in black and white that you need to be polite with the public and treat the drunks more humanly by calling their relating to take them home, instead of languishing in police’s cell.
ROBINS WRITES DOWN FEW WORDS ON A PIECE OF PAPER.
MENON: You’ll find it under ‘Drunkeness’
ROBINS: I know where to find the new instruction. I don’t need your help. Thank you very much!
MENON: Just helping you to keep up to date with new policing.
ROBINS: Don’t be funny with me! Let me remind you that I have a say whether or not you could be recommended to become a full fledge police constable. (PAUSE) There is something that bothers me enormously. Why on earth did you give this lady a bed bath? I mean what were you thinking, man?!
MENON: Wrong again! If you have recently checked the definition of a British Police Constable, you would be reminded that the main function of a British Police Constable is above all else to protect life. I was doing just that.
ROBINS: That your opinion.
MENON: No! (PAUSE) That a fact. I was only responded to a distressed call from an elderly lady. She was recently discharged from hospital after breaking her legs. She was unable to move, on top of that she had a severe bout of stomach upset. I told her that I was a Nurse before joining you lots. I went on to give her a bed bath, changed her dressed, made her bed, called an ambulance for her to be readmitted to hospital. Weeks later, you wrote to the chief constable to thank him for my work.
ROBINS: Not impressed at all. You may be a good Nurse but you are not policeman materiel. (PAUSE) Not in my book anyhow.
MENON: If you mean, to be a good copper, I have to be rude to the public or treat them as the enemy within, then I am not and will not become policeman like you. The German phi /
ROBINS: German! I don’t like foreigners.
MENON: F. Nietzsche said’ whoever fought the monster should see to it that in the process, he did not himself become a monster. When one looks in the abyss, the abyss would look right back’.
MENON SUDDENLY JUMPS UP. THE BACK OF HIS KNEES KNOCK HIS ARMCHAIR.THE SOUND OF CRASHING SHAKES THE WOODEN FLOOR.ROBBINS STARTLES KNOCKS HIS ASHTRAY ON THE FLOOR.
MENON: My letter of resignation. I refuse to become a monster.
MENON WALKS AWAY TO EXIT DOOR.
ROBINS: Where are you going? I have not finished with….
MENON: Sir! Go to hell! Do these words remind you of somebody? MENON SHUT DOOR LOUDLY.
The End.
Question 2. Of TMA 02 W 1226526.
Commentary
I chose radio for the adaptation of my original story ‘The last meeting’, because in radio, there is more scope and flexibility to adapt the story.
As D. Neale suggested in chapter 7 of the handbook ‘in radio everything is
Possible’. However, I soon realised that I could not possibly stick closely to the original story; because of the technical obstacles which I would encounter. I therefore decided to make some changes in the story in order to over come the obstacles, at the same time kept the main gist.
My original story was about my last appraisal as a probationer police constable before becoming a full fledge police constable. But unknown to the readers, I decided to submit my letter of resignation from the police at the end of the appraisal. My tutor suggested that I should have informed the readers from the beginning in order to create more conflict and tension. Whilst I agreed with her suggestion, unfortunately I found myself facing more obstacles in the adaptation of the story for the radio. Consequently I was compelled to employ some of the dramatic tools, for example subtext, point of view and exposition. I used subtext to add a subplot in the first scene, for example the doomed love affairs between Mary and sergeant Hall. In this respect I gave her a bigger role especially in the exposition of inspector Robbins. I used music as sound
effect in revealing the exposition of Mary. In scene one, I included the song ‘If you go away’ a translation from Jacque Brel ‘Ne me quitte pas’, to reflect Mary’s mood as a victim of love. In scene two, ‘The aria of Carmina Buruna O Fortuna’ by Carl Off for Robbins as a hardman. As Jane Rogers suggested (2008- CD track 5) ‘Exposition is very hard in radio. There is no one bullet answer, but music add a particular mood to the character’. However, I realised that to make the adaptation more realistic, I needed to substantiate my reason to resign. Therefore I went on to show the unhappiness of police officers as if they were locked in a loveless marriage with no remedy in sight, except counting the days for their retirement. I had also changed the point of view, for example, from the first to the third point of view for the radio. I then introduced a new character, Dev Menon as the incumbent probationer police constable.
I began the journey of writing the dramatic play through the method of free writing the dialogues for each cast. Then I proceeded to describe the location, timescale and the action. I decided from the outset to write two scenes. Afterwards I began the process of editing by rewriting the first draft and paying more attention to the significant of the words in order to maximise the conflict and tension in the dialogues. In spite of the technical obstacles that I had encountered on the ways of writing the play, I felt that I have learned that dialogue must be meaningful, realistic and above all else dialogic.
514 words.
References.
Neale, Derek (ed.) (2009) A Creative Writing Handbook, Milton
Keynes/London: A & C Black in association with The Open University.
Rogers, Jane (2008) Interview, A363 CD2 Radio, Film, and Fiction,
OU/Pier Production.
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