Hare The Vertical Hour

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30129-4
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Nadia Blye is a young American war reporter turned academic who teaches Political Studies at Yale. A brief holiday with her boyfriend brings her into contact with a kind of Englishman whose culture and background is a surprise and a challenge, both to her and to her relationship. For thirty five years, David Hare has written plays which catch the flavour of our times, the interconnection between our secret motives and our public politics. Now, at last, he writes about an American, seeking to illustrate how life has subtly changed for so many people in the West in the new century. The Vertical Hour received its world premiere at the Music Box Theater, Broadway, on November 30, 2006, and received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 17 January 2008.

David Hare has written over thirty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy's View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn, The Moderate Soprano, I'm Not Running and Beat the Devil. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, the Worricker Trilogy, Collateral and Roadkill. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hare, David

Leseproben

TWO

Nadia This is not a bad essay.

Dutton Thank you.

Nadia It’s not bad.

This is our last class together. Clearly, I haven’t persuaded you to my view of politics.

Dutton I know your view.

Nadia It’s competing claims, isn’t it? If I had to sum it up.

Dutton That’s your view.

Nadia That’s right. People want different things. The things they want can’t be reconciled. Not everyone can what they want. So the mediation between the groups, between the interest groups, the groups who want different things, to that process we give the name ‘politics’.

Ultimately, you could say, politics is about the reconciliation of the irreconcilable.

Dutton I don’t see it that way.

Nadia No.

Dutton For me, politics is about the protection of property and of liberty.

Nadia Yes, that’s what you seem to be saying in this essay.

Dutton It what I’m saying. It’s about peoples’ rights to live their own lives. It’s about absolutes.

Nadia Yes. Yes, but there’s a problem, isn’t there?

Dutton Is there?

Nadia We know for a fact that human life by its nature tends towards unfairness.

Dutton Do we know that?

Nadia So: checks and balances have to be introduced. By human agency. The state, in any system yet proposed by man – be it communism, be it capitalism – has to intervene to balance things out.

Dutton I don’t accept the term.

Nadia What term?

Dutton ‘Capitalism’.

Nadia You don’t accept the term?

Dutton No.

Nadia You don’t accept it?

Dutton No.

Nadia Meaning? Meaning what?

Dutton I don’t think there’s any such thing.

Nadia No such thing as capitalism?

Dutton Correct.

Nadia So what name do you give it then? The system we live under today? The system we call ‘consumer capitalism’, ‘liberal democracy’, characterised by political parties and – I don’t know – huge corporations, massively powerful industrial and military interests? The system as evolved by the West, by Western democracies? What do you call it?

Dutton Life. I call it ‘life’.

Nadia No offence, but do you think Political Studies was a good choice of subject for you?

Dutton My father wanted me to do it.

Nadia He’s important to you?

Dutton Very much so. I admire him more than anyone in the world.

Nadia It’s just … how do I put this? Basic to Political Studies is the notion of comparison.

Dutton Sure.

Nadia We compare.

Dutton Sure.

Nadia That’s what we do. We say, ‘Here’s one way at looking at things, now here’s another.’

Dutton So?

Nadia Well, such comparison becomes difficult if we start out with the idea that there’s only one system – there’s only one way.

Dutton But there is.

Nadia Is there?

Dutton I know it’s inconvenient to ask, but why do you think America has triumphed?

Nadia Inconvenient? Is ‘inconvenient’ the word for America’s triumph? And I’m not sure I’m going to go with ‘triumph’ either.

Dutton Why not? Why not ‘triumph’?

Nadia Listen. Listen. This is a school. It’s not a madrasa. We’re not teaching one path. We’re teaching many paths. You say you admire liberal democracy. Well, basic to liberal democracy is the idea of free discussion. The free exchange of ideas. .

Dutton You telling me I’m wrong to love America?

Nadia I’m not.

Dutton I’m wrong to love my country?

Nadia No. I’m not telling you any such thing. I’m telling you not to be blinded by love, that’s all. Not to be made stupid by love.

Dutton Stupid?

The fact is – I haven’t wanted to say – I’ve come here to say this today: it’s you I’m in love with.

Nadia It’s me?

Dutton I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. Ever since we met. Ever since – you must have noticed.

Nadia What, that –

Dutton I’ve lost weight alarmingly. Have you noticed?

Nadia I haven’t.

Dutton I’m sick. I went to a barbecue on the weekend. The smell repelled me.

I think of you all the time. I find the idea of you incredibly exciting. Of who you are.

Nadia Who I am? Say. If you imagine … For goodness’ sake. Let’s be serious! Tell me. Who am I?

Dutton This woman out there in the world.

Nadia What woman?

Dutton On television.

All right, that was a foolish thing to say.

Nadia A tad.

Dutton It’s not what I meant …

Nadia You have feelings for me because I’ve been on television?

Dutton A woman in the world. That’s what I mean. A woman in the world.

Nadia Dennis, Dennis, I have to tell you there are now quite a lot of women in the world. As you put it. Quite a lot. In fact, the whole assumption dismays me. How old are you?

Dutton Twenty-two.

Nadia I’m a feminist and what you’re saying dismays me.

Dutton Why?

Nadia Because the purpose of women taking part, the purpose of women being intelligent or public or in any way even, the purpose of women talking on television about international politics is not to turn men on!

Dutton You didn’t know? You had no idea?

Nadia I’m going to ignore what you said. I’m going to forget it.

Dutton Can I say something?

Nadia If it’s about politics, yes.

Dutton It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?

Nadia I don’t know what’s nonsense. You tell me.

Dutton The study of international relations.

Nadia In what way is it nonsense, Dennis?

Dutton I took this course – as you know, I’m a business major, my interest is start-up – but my father wanted me to broaden my mind. I don’t know why. Dad’s own mind is about as narrow as it’s possible to be.

Nadia Narrow, how?

Dutton He wants wealth. He wants power. He wants position. That’s all he wants.

Nadia Well?

Dutton This is my point: America wins. It always wins. You can do all that historical perspective stuff, you can say it’s an empire and like...