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She is Not

Lucie Staniek

Image credit: Glasgow Life Museums


‘SHE IS NOT'’ - Mina Loy, ‘Feminist Manifesto’ (1914)


Miss Staniek walks onto the stage, script in hand.

She clears her throat and begins to speak.


Miss Staniek: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and thank you for coming here tonight. The play you’re about to watch has been written post-critically, and so the language used by the actors may be slightly more...how should I put this... fragmented, in comparison to other plays you may have watched before. This, I have no doubt, will confuse the vast majority of you and so I think it is only fair to explain the plot in a little bit of detail without giving too much away.

(Takes a deep breath)


The central focus of this play is the phrase, she is not... she is not what? Well that is for you to decide.


(Chuckles)


In order to find out what she isn't... we must first try and figure out what she is... who she is...


(Pauses and looks down at her script)


The texts the play will draw upon are: Mrs Dalloway, The Pretty Lady, Between the Acts, A Diary Without Dates and the poem Pays Hanté, which were all written in between World War One (1914-1918) and World War Two (1939-1945). Finally, as well as the negation not, there will also be other absences and losses in the play. This includes a missing red hat... which I was inspired to write about after seeing William Strang’s painting, Lady with a Red Hat (1918). I have included this picture at the end of your programmes...


(Smiles)


And so... on that note, please sit back, relax and enjoy the sho— Oh! Sorry, one final thing...


(Laughs)


I should say that information regarding “stage directions” and other information you need to know are in bold, and quotations from novels are in italics and single quotations.


(Winks at the... reader)


Enjoy!

Miss Staniek walks off the stage.


Act 1, Scene 1 

The curtain rises.

Mrs Pym’s flower shop, London, 1984.

Clarissa Dalloway is talking to Mrs Pym, but Mrs Pym is tending to her flowers.

Clarissa smiles at Mrs Pym, then looks down at her own legs.

She takes a deep breath and starts speaking.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Unsure of herself)


I am not Mrs Dalloway. I am Clarissa, I suppose, or perhaps... perhaps I am Mrs Richard Dalloway. I am his, not myself. [1] For you see, I might not be real. I might be so unreal that I may just be imaginary, free-floating, amidst my unconsciousness. [2] My body...


(Sobs)


This body is not my own. ‘This body... this body, with all its capabilities is nothing – nothing at all.’ [3] She, woman, is nothing... nothing...


(Wipes her eyes and looks upwards)


But... I suppose if she is nothing then she must be something, right?


(Widens her eyes)


And if she is not ‘nothing’ but something, then what thing is she?


Clarissa throws her head back in frustration.


Clarissa Dalloway: Ah, this is nonsense! This makes no sense. Right Mrs Pym?


Mrs Pym stays silent, tending to her flowers.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Sighs)


Oh Mrs Pym! You’re not listening. Instead, you are going from flower jar to flower jar, ‘choosing nonsense’. [4]


Mrs Pym: (Mutters)


Nonsense, nonsense’...


(‘She [says] to herself more gently...’) [5]


Nonsense...


Lucie Staniek enters the scene, or rather, this strange space that has been created between the acts.

She looks at Clarissa, then at Mrs Pym, and after clearing her throat begins to speak.


Lucie: (Rubs her head in confusion)


Nonsense... no... sense... where does the extra ‘n’ go from nonsense to no sense?


Clarissa points upwards.


Clarissa Dalloway: Perhaps, it can be found in the sky.


Lucie: The sky?


Clarissa Dalloway: (Nods)


Yes, the sky.


A noise is played offstage – a Hum... Hum... Hum sound emulating an aeroplane flying overhead.

All “actors” on the stage share a look of confusion.

Lucie speaks first.


Lucie: What is that noise?


The Hum... Hum... Hum sound is played again.

The characters look around the stage, trying to find the source of the unknown noise.

Lucie looks up.


Lucie: Oh look!


(Points to the sky)


An aeroplane... an aeroplane in the sky.


Clarissa and Mrs Pym follow Lucie’s finger that is pointing towards the sky.

They too, see the aeroplane.

It ‘soared straight up, curved in a loop, raced, sank, rose, and whatever it did, wherever it went, out fluttered behind it a thick ruffled bar of white smoke which curled and wreathed upon the sky in letters.’[6]


Clarissa Dalloway: (Shouts above the noise)


MAYBE I CAN FIND THE LETTER N WRITTEN IN THE SKY!


(Squints her eyes and follows the plane with her index finger)


K, an E, a Y perhaps?[7]


(Squints harder)


K...E...Y... KEY! A key... but what key?


Clarissa starts to pace across the stage.

She places a hand on her chin and mutters softly to herself, “Key... key... ke—”

Lucie grabs her arm and tells her to stop.


Lucie: (Sighs)


Clarissa, I think you have diverted from the task at hand here. I asked if you could look for the letter ‘n’, where is the ‘n’ Clarissa?


Clarissa stares blankly at Lucie.

Lucie repeats herself.


Lucie: (Softly)


You were looking for the ‘n’ Clarissa, where is it?


Clarissa Dalloway: (Sobs)


The ‘n’ is lost.


(Puts her head in her hands)


It’s lost. Just like the... the hat.


Lucie: What hat?


Clarissa Dalloway: (Sighs, exasperated)


Well, the red hat of course! It was last seen on Vita Sackville-West or sorry, not Vita Sackville-West, but the image of her, painted by one William Strang, in a room...


(Looks around)


Perhaps a room similar to this... similar to A Room of One’s Own. [8]


Lucie: Whose room?


Clarissa Dalloway: Well...


(Unsure)


That is beside the point! For we are looking for a red hat... the red hat. Have you seen one?


Lucie shakes her head - annoyed that she doesn't know where this red hat is.

She sighs sadly, but then suddenly has an idea.

She turns to her copy of Mrs Dalloway that she has, until now, kept in her back pocket.

She opens the novel on page 285 and addresses ‘Mrs Dalloway’ within the book. Seeking the answers that ‘Mrs Dalloway’ cannot.


Lucie: (Addresses the Mrs Dalloway within the novel)


Have you seen one... Mrs Dalloway?


Mrs Dalloway keeps quiet. She seems to be distracted or perhaps, it was Clarissa Dalloway who was distracted or maybe it was Mrs Richard Dalloway who was distracted.


Mrs Dalloway: I am like them.


Lucie: (Shouts into the pages)


LIKE WHO?!


Mrs Dalloway: Well, the other women... the women I see in the street when I'm walking... walking in ‘London; this moment of June.[9]


(Smiles)


Ah yes, ‘I love walking in London...[10]


(Turns to Lucie)


‘Really it’s better than walking in the country.’ [11]


Lucie shakes her head and then turns her attention back to Mrs Dalloway... sorry, not Mrs Dalloway but Clarissa Dalloway.


Lucie: I would like to return to those letters Mrs Dalloway, if possible.


Clarissa smiles at Lucie shyly and then nods her head. She opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted by two women walking onto the stage.

Mrs Coates and Mrs Bletchley enter.


Mrs Coates: Glaxo. [12]


(‘[Says] Mrs Coates in a strained, awe-stricken voice.’) [13]


Mrs Bletchley:No, it’s Kreemo. [14]


(‘[Murmurs] Mrs Bletchley, like a sleepwalker.’) [15]


Mrs Coates and Mrs Bletchley turn to each other and speak in unison.


Mrs Coates & Mrs Bletchley: It is quite difficult distinguishing the letters.


For you see, the ‘pure opaque signs, whose meaning is not yet readily available is seen as language in its “naked state” ...the dancing and shifting of letters in the sky become a theatre where a free play of signifiers is set in motion.’ [16]


Lucie: Ah, an interesting notion.


(Mutters, contemplating what the two women have told her)


An interesting notion indeed... so, what you're saying is that the natural bond between signifier and the signified is... disrupted?


Mrs Coates & Mrs Bletchley: Exactly!


The signifier, you see, becomes free-floating and well... it takes flight. [17]


As soon as the word ‘flight’ sounds, the Hum... Hum... Hum... noise plays once more.

Lucie shakes her head and begins to speak again after the disruption.


Lucie: Hmm, that is fascinating...but I must admit...


(Runs a hand though her hair)


I asked Clarissa, not you Mrs Coates...


(Points at Mrs Coates)


And not you Mrs Bletchley.


(Points at Mrs Bletchley)


Mrs Coates & Mrs Bletchley: Well... 


(They argue)


You wanted to know what she is not, so we must distinguish what she is. She is us... a woman... the other to man. Women don’t possess a phallus... woman is different to man. [18] Therefore, she is not man. She is not Septimus, he was brave, Septimus had fought... fought in World War One. [19]


Septimus and his wife enter.

They stand in the back corner in silence, looking out towards the audience.

The Hum... Hum... Hum... noise plays once more, as if they are ‘signalling him’ - ‘Tears [run] down his face’. [20] They both keep quiet.

Septimus’ wife raises her hand to adjust the hat on her head.

Clarissa sees this movement and begins muttering to the other women on the stage.


Clarissa Dalloway:She put on her new hat and he never noticed; and he was happy without her. Nothing could make her happy without him! Nothing! He was selfish. So men are. For he was not ill. Dr Holmes said there was nothing the matter with him. [21]


Lucie: (Mutters)


So meare? What an odd phrase.


Virginia Woolf enters.

She doesn't notice the women and instead walks absentmindedly across the stage.

She locks eyes with Mrs Pym, or more specifically, Mrs Pym’s flower shop.

Lucie spots her and calls upon her.


Lucie: What an odd phrase, Mrs Woolf.


Don't you mean some are?


Mrs Woolf: (Shakes her head)


Some men are what?


Lucie: Well, selfish. And I mean, if that is the case, then I have found the extra ‘n’ Mrs Dalloway was looking for in no sense... it was in men!


Mr Bowley enters.

He walks silently to the centre of the stage and ‘[raises] his hat’. [22]

He is a man.

Mr Bowley exits.

The women turn their attention back to the aeroplane.

Clarissa stares intensely at it, as if it was going to spell out the missing letters she needs. H...A...T... Alas! There are no such letters.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Sighs)


Is it possible...


(Looks at Mrs Woolf)


That Septimus’ wife possessed the red hat?


Mrs Woolf: What hat?


Clarissa Dalloway: Well, the hat she was wearing on her head!


Mrs Woolf: (Shakes her head)


That hat wasn't red! I think it was brown... or maybe it was a colour... a colour we have seen before. Shall I ask Mrs Pym?


Clarissa nods her head in agreement.

Mrs Woolf cups her mouth and begins to shout.


Mrs Woolf: MRS PYM?

No answer.

Mrs Woolf: MRS PYM?!

No answer.

Mrs Woolf: Where is Mrs Pym?



End scene.



Act 1, Scene 2

Back in the flower shop.

Lucie and Clarissa enter.

They both look around and see that Mrs Pym has been in here all along, tending to her flowers.

Clarissa turns to Lucie and begins to speak.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Mutters)


She is a florist; ‘white, violet, red, orange: every flower seems to burn by itself.’ [23]


Lucie: Wait... go back, was that the colour red I saw? Red for a specific... hat?


Clarissa Dalloway: Nonsense!


That red is the colour of a flower, not the colour of a hat.


Lucie: Oh, I see.


(Sighs)


Well then... I am once again unsure where the red hat is.


Clarissa opens her mouth to speak but is met with the sound of a violent explosion.

*BANG*

She jumps; her conscious stream of thought disrupted by unconscious forces which challenge her identity. [24]

Monsieurs Deleuze and Guattari enter.

Clarissa looks at them, waiting for an explanation for this strange phenomenon.


Monsieurs Deleuze & Guattari: The unconscious...is like a “body without organs”. ‘The body has not yet been “territorialized” into its parts’ and so the ‘unconscious is thus a flux, a flow, a life force that, although implicated in systems of representation as a semiotic process, tends to disrupt and escape them. [25]


Clarissa Dalloway: So, if the unconscious is free-floating, then how can we identify someone if their body has no organs?


Monsieurs Deleuze & Guattari: Well, we must look to the battlefield. That is where the organs were last seen before the explosion.


*BANG*


Clarissa Dalloway: (Frowns, her ears ringing)

 

What explosion?


Monsieurs Deleuze & Guattari: The explosion from the bomb Monsieur Derrida planted on the railway track of course!


Monsieur Derrida enters.

He begins to pace back and forth... back and forth... in front of the other characters on the stage.


Monsieur Derrida: When I was very young and until quite recently—I used to project film in my mind of someone who, by night, plants bombs on the railway: blowing up the enemy structure, planting the delayed-action device and then watching the explosion or at least hearing it from a distance.’ [26]


*BANG

Another explosion sounds.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Panics)


Is there a way we can deconstruct this bomb Monsieur Derrida?


*BANG*


Monsieur Derrida: I’m afraid it’s too late. It's too late...


Clarissa looks up and sees a figure falling... 


*BANG*

It is Lady Queenie Paulle!

Her body lies motionless on the floor... she is unconscious... a hat tossed askew next to her.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Leans over the body)


Is that the red hat?


But before she has time to identify the hat, one G.J enters.

He moves Clarissa out of the way so he can get to the body.

He falls to his knees.


G.J: She is... she is... bombed.


(Sobs)


Clarissa Dalloway: She is... dead.


(Cries)


Monsieur Derrida: Perhaps, she is... she is...um...


(Shrugs shoulders)


Perhaps, she is at, peace.


Queenie, or perhaps not Queenie, but the ghost of Queenie looks down at her body. Her soul free- floating in the abyss of Chapter Thirty-Five of The Pretty Lady.

Queenie’s ghost turns to the coroner... or was he a doctor?


Lady Queenie’s ghost: (Shouts)


LINE!

OFFSTAGE

“The coroner was also a doctor.” [27]

The coroner-who-was-also-a-doctor enters.


Lady Queenie’s ghost: (Clears her throat and looks at him)


What happened?


The coroner-who-was-also-a-doctor:The body was found on the wire-netting; it had fallen from the chimney. [28]


(Scratches his head)


But... the fall wasn't the actual cause of her death.


Lady Queenie’s ghost: No?


The coroner-who-was-also-a-doctor: No.


(Takes a deep breath)


Death was due to an extremely small piece of shrapnel which struck the deceased's head slightly above the left ear, entering the brain.’ [29]


Lady Queenie’s ghost: An unfortunate death.


(Sighs)


An unfortunate death indeed.


The coroner-who-was-also-a-doctor fixes the ‘silk hat’ on his head.

“The red hat?” The audience asks. No... a silk hat.

*Groan*


Lucie: What a shame. Where is that hat?


(Looks at the crumpled body and sighs)


This feels surreal... unreal.


Lucie turns to Herr Freud who is standing offstage.

She takes a deep breath and shouts across:


Lucie: She is not real I suppose... she is just but a figment of the unconscious.


Herr Freud nods his head, Lucie smiles.

G.J turns his attention back to Queenie’s crumpled body.


G.J: The world of Queenie’s acquaintances made a strange, vivid contrast to this grey, grim, blockish world: and the two worlds regarded each other with the wonder and the suspicious resentment of foreigners. [30]


Lucie: Foreigners... she is, foreign?


Virginia Woolf enters.


Mrs Woolf: (Clears her throat)


As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.’ [31]


Lady Queenie’s ghost: Are you saying...that she is not... patriotic?


Mrs Woolf: Well, her identity has been challenged hasn’t it... so I suppose she can’t identify with her country until she identifies with herself.


Monsieur Varley enters.


Monsieur Varley: (Cups his mouth and shouts)


Farewell ghosts! The world no longer needs you — or me.’ You are in between worlds... in between wars. [32]


Clarissa Dalloway: (Frowns)


What do you mean Monsieur Varley?


Monsieur Varley: Well, you see... or perhaps you can’t see because you are not real... she is not present, she is past... therefore, I must ask you, does this red hat even exist?


Clarissa Dalloway: What hat?


Lucie: Well, the red hat of course! The coroner-who-was-also-a-doctor told me that there was no red hat near Queenie’s dead body, despite what Clarissa Dalloway or Mrs Dalloway or Mrs Richard Dalloway had claimed!


Lady Queenie’s ghost: (Scoffs)


Impossible! Just because you didn’t see the red hat doesn’t mean it is non-existent. You must use your other senses... like sound... right, Mrs Woolf?


Mrs Woolf opens her mouth to respond but is interrupted by a noise.

Not a Hum... Hum... Hum... but a Tick... Tick... Tick...

The characters on stage turn to look at each other.

The noise keeps getting louder... until it is deafening.


Lucie: I think... I think...It’s Monsieur Derrida's explosive device.


Lady Queenie’s ghost: (Looks at Lucie, confused)


But I thought it went off before...


Lucie places a hand on her chin.

The noise sounds, louder this time.

TICK... TICK... TICK...


Lucie: Perhaps it is a different bomb... planted by someone else... during World War One.


TICK... TICK... TICK...

Silence.

Lucie looks frantically at Miss La Trobe who is offstage.

Miss La Trobe looks at the script in her hand and begins flicking it in between her fingers. Her eyes widen. Time was running out...


Lucie: (Shouts)


HURRY MISS!


We don’t have much time; the curtain is about to go up Between the Acts...


End scene.

The curtain falls.



INTERVAL



Act 2, Scene 1 The curtain rises.

The scene begins in the play, Between the Acts.

Miss La Trobe enters.

She clears her throat and starts speaking.


Miss La Trobe: Time...stood still.


(Pauses)


Wait, can time even stand?


Hamlet enters.


Hamlet: Well, not if it’s out of joint.


(Clears his throat)


‘Time is out of joint’. [33]


Miss La Trobe’s bones tremble. Is she... out of time? She scratches her head.


Miss La Trobe: Time for the next act?


Hamlet: The next... act? [34] We’ve only just begun this one. The next act will be World War Two. We must stay here... in Between the Acts.


Tick... Tick... Tick...The noise sounds.

Hamlet looks around the stage, confused.


Hamlet: What is that noise?


Miss La Trobe looks at Lucie who is offstage.

Miss La Trobe starts shouting, to cover up the unexplained noise.

Lucie enters.


Miss La Trobe: ‘Music!’ [35]


(She signals)


‘Music!’ [36]

Music starts to play.

A girl enters. 

A Girl: England am I...’ [37]


(Sings)


‘England am I...’ [38]


(Stops and looks down at her feet)


Hamlet: (Whispers)


Has she... forgotten her lines?


Lucie: (Whispers)


I suppose she is England then.


Hamlet: (He whispers)


She must have found her identity.


Chuff, chuff, chuff the machine [buzzes]’ [39]


Lucie: England was she? Queen Anne was she? Who was she?’ [40]


A Girl: She is... she is...


Miss La Trobe: (Shouts)


NOT MAN!


Mrs Dalloway, sorry, it was Clarissa Dalloway who told us or...didn’t tell us before.


Lucie: Aah, yes... that’s right... So, if she is not man then she must be the other, right? The other of man.


Madame Cixous enters.

In her right hand she has a copy of Sorties. She opens it to a specific page.


Madame Cixous:I will say: today, writing is woman’s. That provocation, it means that woman admits there is an other... the other that I am and am not’. [41]


Miss La Trobe looks at Lucie.


Miss La Trobe: Well... that makes sense I suppose.


(Mutters)


I wrote this play... and Mrs Woolf wrote me... and Miss Staniek wrote us. We must look at ourselves... all I see are mirrors. Thus, I suppose there are other women... we are all different, yet the same, as we are not man. ‘The tick, tick, tick [seems] to hold [us] together, tranced... [42]


Lucie: We are at war.


Madame Cixous: (Clears her throat)


Writing is the passageway, the entrance, the exit, the dwelling place of the other in me... she is... bisexual.’ [43]


Madame Cixous looks at Mrs Woolf who is offstage.

Mrs Woolf is looking at the audience. She makes eye contact with Vita Sackville-West.

‘Tick, tick, tick, the machine continued. Time was passing.’ [44]


A Girl:I kissed a girl and let her go, Another did I tumble, In the straw and in the hay...’


(Stops)


The girl looks at Miss La Trobe for help, but Miss La Trobe is looking at Vita Sackville-West. Vita Sackville-West is wearing a hat. “The red hat?” The audience asks.

Miss La Trobe squints and sighs. No, it is a black hat.

*Groan*

Clarissa enters.


Clarissa Dalloway: Well, that doesn't make any sense! It was last seen on her head!


Miss La Trobe: In 1918 though, and it is now 1939...


(Gasps)


Maybe we just have to go back in time... into the past... to find the red hat... as after all, William Strang died in 1921.


Clarissa Dalloway: (Smiles)


Perhaps one Enid Bagnold wrote about the red hat in A Diary without Dates... it was published in 1918, the same year Mr. Strang painted the Lady with a Red Hat.


(Pauses)


A coincidence?

 

Miss La Trobe: Perhaps... or perhaps not. It might just be so improbable that it is actually... well, probable.


End scene.



Act 2, Scene 2

The scene begins in a hospital during the War.

Lucie and Clarissa enter.

Lucie clears her throat then begins to speak.


Lucie: She is a VAD.


Clarissa Dalloway: Who is?


Lucie: Well, Miss Bagnold of course. She is not constant however, she moves fleetingly... between chapters... between the glass doors... outside, inside, the boys. A mirror image of who she used to be... ‘her consciousness shifts from one discursive position to another’. [45]


Clarissa Dalloway: V...A...D...


(Pauses)


V...A...D...


(Pauses)


What strange lettering.


Lucie: She is a VAD; she is not a Sister... she doesn’t get along with the sisters... ‘the eldest Sister and the youngest Sister are [her] enemies’. [46]


Clarissa Dalloway: (Whispers, upset)


So, she is... alone?


Lucie: (Nods)


The Sisters are [her] enemies’...[47]


Miss Bagnold enters.

She looks around and grimaces. The enemies have penetrated the walls.

There is nowhere to hide... there is nothing left... just shrapnel.

*BANG* another explosion sounds —

*BANG*

All she can hear are groans... groans from the soldiers who’d been hit. Up and down... up and down... she walks briskly up and down the ward.

She is looking for a man, a man who has no nostrils.


Miss Bagnold: (Looks at Lucie and Clarissa)


Have you seen him?


Lucie and Clarissa shake their heads.

Miss Bagnold begins to look frantically around the room again.

Suddenly there is a loud cough from a man on a stretcher.


Lucie: (Shouts)


Over there!


Miss Bagnold turns around and sees the man with no nostrils on a stretcher. She walks over to him and notes that his nostrils... have been blown away.

He is breathing ‘through two pieces of red rubber tubing: it [gives] a more horrible look to his face than [she has] ever seen.’ [48]


Miss Bagnold: What a poor man.


(Sobs)


What a poor, poor man, ‘I wonder if he thinks it’s better to die.’ [49]


Miss Bagnold fixes her hat. “The red hat?” The audience asks.

Ah, sorry, cap! She fixes her cap...

*Groan*

Miss Bagnold fixes her cap and steps away from the stretcher.


Miss Bagnold: I hate this uniform.


(Mutters)


Oh, how I hate this unform...


(Turns to the audience)


I’m sorry! For I have also been unsuccessful in finding the hat.


Lucie walks over to Miss Bagnold and places her hand on her shoulder.


Lucie: Perhaps... we are looking in the wrong place. There are only missing body parts here, not missing hats. Wait. Wait a minute.


Lucie turns to Miss La Trobe who is offstage.


Lucie: Do we have enough time?


Miss La Trobe looks at the clock.

Tick... Tick... Tick...

She nods her head.


Lucie: I know someone who might know where the hat is... one Nancy Cunard. She was very fashionable in the 1920s... perhaps she has the red hat.


Clarissa Dalloway: What hat?


Lucie: (Sighs)


Well, the one we have been looking for of course! Perhaps she mentions it in Pays Hanté, 1923.


Clarissa Dalloway: Where?


Lucie: The haunted country.


End scene.



Act 2, Scene 3

The scene begins on a battlefield.

Miss Cunard and Miss Bagnold enter.

Miss Cunard shivers, then begins speaking.


Miss Cunard: I have been far tonight calling the dead | Calling them through the mist to stand on the old road’. [50]


Miss Bagnold: Who are the dead?


Miss Cunard: Well, the soldiers... the soldiers who died on the battlefield before they made it to your hospital.


Miss Bagnold: So, she is a... beacon? Calling the soldier's home whilst they are, ‘submerged in half-conscious, half-asleep reveries and meditation’. [51]


Miss Cunard opens her mouth to answer, but then pauses.

She looks around the stage.


Miss Cunard: (Whispers)


The trees... are watching us...


Miss Bagnold: Watching us?


Miss Cunard: (Nods)


Yes, watching us... watching ‘our ghosts move together again’. [52]


Miss Bagnold shivers.


Miss Cunard: It’s just so green! So green... ‘green runs the grass here’... [53]


(Pauses)


It’s as if nothing happened here, nothing at all.


Miss Bagnold places a hand on her chin.


Miss Bagnold: You seem awfully fascinated by the colour green, Miss Cunard.


Miss Cunard: Do I? Ah yes, green...


Miss Cunard pauses, then shakes her head.


Miss Cunard: It’s as if nothing has happened here... ‘This year I have no ghosts, no new winds have breathed on me | Dispensing dusts – I have no shrouds to consider’. [54] Oh, the enjambment!


(Shrieks)


Life must continue... we must continue... the war is over, there is only peace?


(Pauses)


Perhaps, ‘the day is with you now’...[55]


Miss Bagnold: Now?


Miss Cunard: (Nods)


As in the present. Perhaps, she is... a gift? A muse for others...


Miss Bagnold and Miss Cunard fall into silence.

Then suddenly, Miss Cunard clicks her fingers.


Miss Cunard: Ah! I remember now why green was so fascinating to me.


Miss Bagnold: Green?


Miss Cunard: Yes, remember, green... the colour?


Miss Bagnold thinks for a moment and then slowly nods her head.

Miss Cunard continues talking.


Miss Cunard: Well, you see, in Paris one Michael Arlen wrote a book about a hat!


Miss Bagnold: The red hat?


Miss Cunard: (Sighs)


Um, well... no. It was green, I believe.


(Pauses)


It was called The Green Hat and was published in 1924.


(Giggles)


It was known across Paris that I was the muse!


Miss Cunard bursts into laughter, but then stops when she sees Miss Bagnold’s face.

She clears her throat.


Miss Cunard: My dear...


(Sighs)


Have you ever thought about the possibility that the red hat never left the room?


Miss Bagnold: What room?


Miss Cunard: Well, the Room of One’s Own... you know, Mrs Woolf’s... they were lovers you know.


Miss Bagnold scratches her head.


Miss Bagnold: Who were?


Miss Cunard: Well, Mrs Woolf and Vita Sackville-West! Mr Strang knew about it.

I suspect the red hat was left there... a token of what once was.


Miss Cunard turns to the audience.


Miss Cunard: I do believe that we will never find the red hat....


Miss Cunard walks to the front of the stage.


Miss Cunard: It is just as absent as the not in she is not.




FINIS


The curtain falls.



Vita Sackville-West wearing a red hat... sorry, the image of Vita Sackville-West wearing a red hat... sorry, the reproduction of the image of Vita Sackville- West wearing a red hat... her aura disrupted in the ‘here and the now’... she is not ‘one-of-a-kind'… but she is... I suppose... a work of art. [56]




Notes

1 Virginia Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, vol D, 10th edn, ed. by Stephen Greenblatt, (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018), pp.284-392, (p.289).

2 Ban Wang, ‘“I” on the run: Crisis of Identity in “Mrs. Dalloway”’, Modern Fiction Studies, 38.1 (1992), 177-191 (p.178).

3 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p.1.

4 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 290.

5 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 290.

6 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

7 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

8 Virginia, Woolf, ‘From A Room of One’s Own’, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, vol D, 10th edn, ed. by Stephen Greenblatt, (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018), pp. 392-400.

9 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 285.

10 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 286.

11 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 286.

12 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

13 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

14 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

15 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

16 Wang, p.182.

17 Wang, p.182.

18 Jacques Derrida, ‘Differance’ (1968), in A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, by Anthony Easthope and Kate McGowan, eds, 2nd edn, (New York: Open Press University, 2004), pp.120-142, (p.120).

19 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 296.

20 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 296.

21 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 296.

22 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 294.

23 Woolf, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, p. 290.

24 Wang, p. 177.

25 Wang, p. 184.

26 Hillis J. Miller, 'Derrida’s Destinerrance', MLN, 121.4 (2006) 893-910 (p.896).

27 Arnold Bennett, The Pretty Lady, (Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1918), p.267.

28 Bennett, p. 267.

29 Bennett, p.267.

30 Bennett, p.264.

31 Wang, p.190.

32 Paul Valery, Crisis of the Mind (n.d.), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-valery

33 Jacques Derrida and Maurizio Ferraris, A Taste for the Secret, trans. by Giacomo Donis, ed. by Giacomo Davis and David Webb (Cambridge: Polity Press and Blackwell Publishing, 2001), p.6.

34 Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts, (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1984), p. 82.

35 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.60.

36 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.60.

37 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.60.

38 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.60.

39 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.60.

40 Woolf, Between the Acts, p.92.

41 Hélène Cixous, from ‘Sorties’ (1986), in A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, by Anthony Easthope and Kate McGowan, eds, 2nd edn, (New York: Open Press University, 2004) pp.157-167, (p.169).

42 Woolf, Between the Acts, p. 63.

43 Cixous, pp.159 and 160.

44 Woolf, Between the Acts, p. 63.

45 Wang, p.181.

46 Enid Bagnold, A Diary Without Dates, (London: Virago Limited, 1978), p.69.

47 Bagnold, p.69.

48 Bagnold, p.7.

49 Bagnold, p.7.

50 Nancy Cunard, ‘Pays Hanté’ in Nancy Cunard, Selected Poems, ed. by Parmar, Sandeep, (Exeter: Carcanet Press Limited, 2016), p.74, (II. 12-13).

51 Wang, p. 187.

52 Cunard, (I. 8).

53 Cunard, (I. 1).

54 Cunard, (II. 19-20).

55 Cunard, (I. 24).

56 William Strang, ‘Lady with a Red Hat’ [online] https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/lady-with-a-red-hat-86170

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. by A J. Underwood, (London: Penguin Books, 2008), pp.5 and 11.



Bibliography

Bagnold, Enid, A Diary Without Dates, (London: Virago Limited, 1978)


Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. by Underwood A. J (London: Penguin Books, 2008)


Bennett, Arnold, The Pretty Lady, (Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1918)


Cixous, Hélène, from ‘Sorties’ (1986), in A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, by Easthope, Anthony and McGowan, Kate, eds, 2nd edn, (New York: Open Press University, 2004)


Cunard, Nancy, ‘Pays Hanté’ in Nancy Cunard, Selected Poems, ed. by Parmar, Sandeep, (Exeter: Carcanet Press Limited, 2016)


Derrida, Jacques, ‘Differance’ (1968), in A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, by Easthope, Anthony and McGowan, Kate, eds, 2nd edn, (New York: Open Press University, 2004)


Derrida, Jacques and Ferraris Maurizio, A Taste for the Secret, trans. by Donis, Giacomo, ed. by David, Giacomo and Webb, David, (Cambridge: Polity Press and Blackwell Publishing, 2001)


Miller, Hillis, J, Derrida’s Destinerrance, MLN, 121.4 (2006) 893-910


Strang, William, ‘Lady with a Red Hat’ [online] https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/lady-with-a-red-hat-86170


Valery, Paul, Crisis of the Mind (n.d.) [online] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-valery


Wang, Ban, ‘“I” on the run: Crisis of Identity in “Mrs. Dalloway”’, Modern Fiction Studies, 38.1 (1992), 177-191

Woolf, Virginia, Between the Acts, (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1984)


 , ‘From A Room of One’s Own’, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, vol D, 10th edn, ed. by Greenblatt, Stephen, (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018)


 , ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, vol D, 10th edn, ed. by Greenblatt, Stephen, (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018)






Lucie Staniek is a Creative Writing PhD student at Lancaster University, UK.


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