Children of the Sun Read online

  Yelena Sense? Sense? … Are you …? How can you be so smart and such an idiot? Look at what you’ve done to your sister. And this place, look where you have left us? All of us, in your quest for sense. You think about the universe and the cosmos and the great big places. But look here, right under your nose? Your family home, your people – the whole town devoted to your family name – is dying. They’re all killing each other. Your best friend has hung himself. And you’ve been what? Making sense of the universe? Have you found the source of life? Have you found the final piece of the puzzle? You’ve sacrificed all of us, for what? Pavel? For your ‘sense’. For some great sudden insight? Where is it? This sense you’ve made?

  Protasov Yelena? Really?

  Nanny? What is she saying? All I want is for it to be how it was. When we were right there on the brink of the truth and everyone was listening, waiting, hoping for the great leap. The great future. Nanny?

  Screams and explosions. The crashing of wood and the buckling of iron.

  Nazar and Roman race on.

  Nazar They’re going to break through. Liza is opening / the gates.

  Nanny Liza! Liza!

  Doctor Liza is being swallowed in / the crowd.

  Yelena Come with me, we have to try and do something. Liza! Come on.

  Yelena, brandishing her revolver heads off. The others follow.

  Protasov is left.

  Gunshots and a clamour of voices …

  THE NATIONAL THEATRE

  The National Theatre, where this play had its premiere, is central to the creative life of the UK. In its three theatres on the South Bank in London it presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics from the world repertoire, with seven or eight productions in repertory at any one time. And through an extensive programme of amplifying activities – Platform performances, backstage tours, foyer music, publications, exhibitions and outdoor events – it recognises that theatre doesn’t begin and end with the rise and fall of the curtain.

  The National endeavours to maintain and re-energise the great traditions of the British stage and to expand the horizons of audiences and artists alike. It aspires to reflect in its repertoire the diversity of the nation’s culture. It takes a particular responsibility for the creation of new work – offering at the NT Studio a space for research and development for the NT’s stages and the theatre as a whole. Through its Learning Programme, it invites people of all ages to discover the NT’s repertoire, the skills and excitement of theatre-making, and the building itself. As the national theatre, it aims to foster the health of the wider British theatre through policies of collaboration and touring. These activities demonstrate the considerable public benefit provided by the NT, both locally and nationally.

  Between 20 and 26 new productions are staged each year in one of the NT’s three theatres, the Olivier, the Lyttelton and the Cottesloe. In 2011–12, the National’s total reach was 2.3 million people worldwide, through attendances on the South Bank, in the West End, on tour and through National Theatre Live, the digital broadcast of live performances to cinema screens all over the world.

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  About Maxim Gorky

  Maxim Gorky was born in 1868, suffered a deprived childhood and spent his early youth as a vagrant, but by the 1890s he was ranked with Tolstoy and Chekhov among Russia’s leading writers. For long he was best known in the West as a novelist, notably for The Mother (1907) and for the three volumes of his Autobiography, with only The Lower Depths (1902) established on the stage; but in the last third of the twentieth century his other plays began also to be recognised for their portrayals of the painful pre-revolutionary decades. These included Philistines (1901), Summerfolk (1904), Children of the Sun (1905), Enemies (1906) and Vassa Shelesnova (1910). After some equivocation and years in exile, he finally embraced the Revolution, and died in 1936.

  About Andrew Upton

  Andrew Upton is Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company, where his first play, Hanging Man, was staged in 2002, followed by Riflemind in 2007. He has also adapted a number of classics for the company. His version of Gorky’s Philistines was seen at the National Theatre in London in 2007, and of Bulgakov’s The White Guard in 2010. He wrote the films Bangers (1999), which he also directed, and Gone (2006), and the libretto for Alan John’s opera Through the Looking Glass (2008).

  By Andrew Upton from Faber

  RIFLEMIND

  PHILISTINES

  (adapted from Gorky)

  THE WHITE GUARD

  (adapted from Bulgakov)

  THE CHERRY ORCHARD

  (adapted from Chekhov)

  Copyright

  First published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

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  This ebook edition first published in 2013

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  © Andrew Upton, 2013

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  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–30488–2