theatre
writing for the stage



Pearl

November 2012  and  October 2014
Pearl
The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal in partnership with Paines Plough Theatre Company


A 15 minute monologue originally performed by the writer as part of the national Come To Where I'm From project at The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal in November 2012.  In October 2014 Pearl was included in the final installation at London's South Bank Centre for the London Literature Festival.



“This hill you have climbed more or less every day for seventeen years, has mothered you when your own mother could not.  The paths you walk curve like a woman’s hip, the dip of her waist, the swell of her breast, the space between her shoulder and her neck where a small head might rest.  This hill has soothed you.  It is the cool palm on your hot forehead, a thumb rubbing a tear from your eye, a soft mouth against your temple.  When you first stamped along these paths, claiming a place for yourself in this world, this landscape calmed you.  Day after day you were welcomed, whatever your mood.  This place can be splendid in the sunshine, glittering like a woman dressed, decorated and scented for celebration, but on dark days too, shrouded in grey, it lifts you towards the top, holding you up to the thrash of rain and wind, and then coaxing you back down into the shelter of its hollows.  Here you’ve shared the beginnings of your stories and listened to secrets, in the wind.  Characters have been formed and their lives interwoven, as your boots sank into this muddy earth.  From this peak you’ve gazed at the Lake District mountains and the wild sweep of Morecambe Bay, the dialogue of imaginary people filling your head.” 

Extract from Pearl



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