Flat Spin 2: Renewing the Lease / by Marsali Taylor

Cast

The Flatmates:
JILL - reading English. Normally the reliable one but presently a little love-struck, so not her usual efficient self
ALICE - reading law. Brisk and organised. Rather inclined to delegate to others.
NANCY - reading medicine. Scatty and inclined to flap
JAN - reading music. Generally not on this planet, too busy hearing music in her head
CATHY - supposedly reading English, but concentrating more on having a good time.

Other Characters:
HORTENSE - Cathy's Mum. A natural paranoid worrier.
MRS CAPALDI - the landlady. Italian, voluble, excitable and naturally dramatic.
POLICE OFFICER - a young woman used to the ways of students.

Like Flat Spin, which involves the same group of girl students, this play makes a good exam piece. It is funnier than its predecessor, concentrating this time on an intrinsically comic situation rather than, as last time, a potentially sad one.

Running time: approx 25 minutes.

Note: the part of Cathy is too short to be examinable, but she has very little to do and say - just appearing briefly at the beginning and end of the play. This part should be taken by someone who is not being examined. The main bulk of the play can be rehearsed without the need for the presence of the actress playing this character.

The part of the police officer is also too small, but it is easy to double this role with that of Alice.

The play thus ends up with the following examinable roles:
JILL
ALICE & POLICE OFFICER
NANCY
JAN
HORTENSE
MRS CAPALDI
making for a cast of 6, with a small extra part for a non-examinee: CATHY.

Sample Pages from the script

Extract 1

The scene is a student flat: a bed Up Right with, beside it, a door into the kitchen. Through this door we can see the end of a table piled high with dishes etc. The flat chores rota is pinned to the doorjamb. A rather dilapidated sofa, centre, with a bucket on the floor beside it. Down left, Jill's table, with piles of books and papers. Down right, a mattress on the floor with Cathy fast asleep on it.

It's a grey day outside: we hear rain on the window and roof. The lighting suggests this dreariness.

Jill and Alice are sitting on the sofa and waking up slowly over a cup of tea. Alice is dressed and ready to go, except for her boots, which are by Jill's bed. Jill is still in her dressing gown. Jan is practising her scales off. Two radios murmur softly off - Nancy's Radio 1, Alice's Radio 4.

JILL
And after the film, we went to this Italian restaurant for supper .... [She breaks off into a huge yawn.]

ALICE
It was a good night then.

JILL
starry-eyed Mmmmm. [Sudden smile.] Saw Cathy and her mates, with what looked like half a football team.

Cathy turns over, mutters 'Rugby'. and turns over again.

A sudden short blackout accompanied by a scream from Nancy and both radios cutting out. Nancy charges in, in her dressing gown.

NANCY
I nearly got electrocuted. I was just reaching up to put the light bulb in the socket when a drip came out and zapped right up my arm.

ALICE
Jill, you were going to phone Mrs Capaldi.

JILL
I'll tell her when she comes about renewing the lease.

ALICE
When's that?

JILL vaguely
Oh, next week - a couple of weeks...

ALICE sarcastically
Thought love was supposed to waken you up.

JILL dreamily
Mmmmm.

ALICE
One of us is going to get killed. Nancy joins them on the sofa.

NANCY
It was horrible - like a red-hot wire running up the inside of my arm.

ALICE
That's the radios gone again.

JILL
I'll phone her.

ALICE
Write a letter and send it recorded delivery.

NANCY
Why?

ALICE
So our parents can sue after we die, of course. If you're going to be a doctor you should know about this kind of thing.

NANCY I was hoping not to kill my patients.

A pause. Jan stops playing. They listen to the wafer dripping into the bucket.

NANCY to Jill
Good night out?

JILL
Fantastic.

Another pause. Drip, drip. Nancy's eyes fall, vaguely, on Cathy.

NANCY
Cathy said to wake her.

ALICE
Good luck.

JILL
Why's Cath want waking so early?

NANCY
She's expecting visitors. [Thumping sounds off.] Family.

CATHY turning over again, mumbling
Mum. Ten o'clock.

Jan appears, dressed, heading for the kitchen.

ALICE, JILL, NANCY variously
Mind the bucket!

Cathy pulls the duvet over her head.

JAN stops just in time.
I knew it was there. [She looks down into the bucket on the floor.] It's almost full.

JILL
It can't be. I emptied it when I got up.

Jan lifts it to show her and gets a drip on the head.

ALICE
It's getting worse.

Jan puts the bucket down and heads for the kitchen.

NANCY
The crack's bigger too. It's almost reached your desk, Jill.

JILL
You're telling me. I was beginning to think I had dandruff, then I realised it was just flaking plaster.

Drip, drip

JAN looking up
It's spreading into the kitchen too.

NANCY
And there's a patch of baccillium in the corner.

JILL
A patch of what?

JAN
This black spotty mould stuff?

NANCY
A major cause of asthma and allergy-related syndromes.[She rises and wanders off.]

Extract 2

Jill shoos them out and goes to the door. Jan dives back for her fiddle. We hear Jill off.

JILL
Good morning, Mrs Capaldi. Horrid day, isn't it? Can I take your coat?

Mrs Capaldi enters. She has constantly moving beady eyes and an air of suspicion.

MRS CAPALDI
No, I do not stay long. Have you been putting up posters on this wall?

JILL
Oh no - just one poster, and I used blutack.

MRS CAPALDI
It is new paint. You will not do this. It is in terms of lease. No posters.

JILL
Of course not.

MRS CAPALDI
Where is lovely painting of crying child? Jill fishes under the bed and displays it.

MRS CAPALDI
This is nice picture, gives tone to room. No poster of naked man.

JILL
It wasn't ...

MRS CAPALDI
And there is a burn mark on my new sofa. You have been having parties.

JILL
Oh no ...

MRS CAPALDI
I will not have parties. And see, see - the table that belonged to my grandmother. You have put rings all over it.

JILL
I'm very sorry.

MRS CAPALDI
And your bed is not made. A respectable girl makes her bed first thing. [She continues round.] What is this pail? Why do you have a pail on my good carpet? This does not look well.

JILL
It's the roof, you see, Mrs Capaldi. It leaks a little.... it would be very good if you got it fixed... also, the light bulb in the bathroom...

MRS CAPALDI
Complaints, complaints, nothing but complaints - I have fifty, a hundred young persons ready to rent this flat if you do not find it good enough for you.

JILL
Oh no, I wasn't meaning to complain... we've been very happy here, very comfortable... it's just we feel it's a little unsafe.

MRS CAPALDI
Unsafe? You are accusing me of letting a dangerous flat?

JILL
Oh no, not at all - I'm sure it's fine - it would just reassure us if you -

MRS CAPALDI And what is this mould in the kitchen?

JILL Erm, yes, it's damp - it's the crack in the roof, you see -

MRS CAPALDI
No, it is rising from your dishes. Look at this saucepan. Never would my grandmother permit to leave a saucepan like this overnight. Indeed I think it has been here for many days. Tssk, tssk. And the rest of the flat...

Jill puts her head in her hands as Mrs Capaldl powers off. Conversation heard off:

MRS CAPALDI off - to Nancy
More posters - and more - and why do you have two mattresses on your bed? Do you think you are the princess who slept on a pea? [To Jan.] This room is very untidy. What is this music? I hope there will not be complaints about the noise.

MRS CAPALDI returning, with Jan and Nancy trailing behind her
And what is this I hear from Maria on the ground floor about you having a boy-friend? I will not allow this in my house. [Pause for breath; they all look despairingly at each other. Jan clutches her fiddle for comfort. Sudden about-face,] But you are quiet girls, and I am a mama myself and I will look after you. I will permit another lease.

Relief on Jill, Jan and Nancy's faces. Mrs Capaldi rummages in her handbag and brings out an official-looking paper. Long palaver with glasses, finding a pen that writes - she has a bag apparently full of the ones sent free with charity letters. Each of the girls sign and Mrs Capaidi is about to sign too when the doorbell rings. The door is pushed open and Hortense storms in, accompanied by a police officer.

HORTENSE dramatically
There you are, Officer. Arrest those girls.

POLICE
Ma'am, I hardly think that's necessary.

HORTENSE
My Cathy was living here. This is her bracelet. These girls are hiding her.

Mrs Capaldl sees the police as her natural enemies. She squares up, indignant

MRS CAPALDI
There is not a Cathy here. There a Jill is, and a Nancy and a Jan and an Alice, all nice homely girls. There is no Cathy.... [She has an idea and turns on Jill.] ... Unless you unofficially have let to her, which I have expressly forbidden. I will not have extra people sleeping on my nice sofa. I have warned you. Four I will have but five - out you go. I have a fifty, a hundred other students ...

HORTENSE
I was most unwilling to let our Cathy go off to University. She's had a sheltered upbringing - a shy, quiet girl...

JILL, JAN, NANCY involuntarily
Cathy?

NANCY
You're Cathy's Mum?

HORTENSE
I don't like the look of this area. Perhaps she's been abducted by white slavers!

POLICE
Madam, that's hardly likely ...

MRS CAPALDI
White slavers? What is this I was hearing about you with a boyfriend? Where is he from? He is not an Arab or a Turk?

JILL
No, he's from London...

MRS CAPALDI who thinks the big city is where everything nasty happens
London!

POLICE firmly
Now, madam -

HORTENSE
Or they're running a dope ring.

MRS CAPALDI
Dope? In my flat? I will not have dope here. Out you will go, out, out.

HORTENSE
I've read all about these students.

POLICE
This is all completely unlikely. Now, please calm down.

HORTENSE
The flat has a most unpleasant smell. [Mrs Capaldl reacts with total indignation.] [Working up to hysterics.] They've murdered Cathy and hidden her body under the floorboards.

MRS CAPALDI
Now that is enough! My flat, smelling! These girls are good girls - like my own, I assure you - how dare this woman come in accusing them of being white slavers and dope peddlers and murderers? She is more like the sort of woman who would entice young girls away, with her dyed hair and her bright clothes!

HORTENSE
Dyed hair!

MRS CAPALDI
A true mama would dress like one.

HORTENSE
How dare you!

MRS CAPALDI
I will sue her for defamation of character.

JILL taking a very deep breath
Officer, this is our landlady. She's just come to renew our lease for another year. She will assure you that this flat is only for four people. Me, ,fan, Nancy and Alice, who's not here.

NANCY
As usual.

MRS CAPALDI
That is right. Only four people. Four girls.

JILL pleading look
You see, Officers.

 

Sample Pages from Production Notes

INTRODUCTION: THEMES, THE PLAY’S INTENTIONS

For fans of Flat Spin, this play is a follow-up, featuring the same group of student flat-mates. However, it is not necessary to have read Flat Spin to appreciate this sequel. Fun-loving Cathy is camping out in the flat which is officially rented by Jill, Alice, Jan and Nancy. Cathy has a mattress on the floor of Jill’s room and, being Cathy, has freely scattered her belongings around the space which should belong to the long-suffering Jill. In the first play, Cathy had inadvertently ‘got off’ with Dave, the boy that Jill has set her heart on. Realising this finally, Cathy relinquished any hold she may have had on Dave and manoeuvred a date for Jill with him instead. In this play, the time is a few weeks later. Jill and Dave are now an item and Jill is hook, line and sinker in love with him. Love renders her dreamy and most un-Jill-like, though as realisation of crisis comes to the fore, Jill becomes her usual practical self as the play progresses.

Flat Spin had lightness of touch but was basically a comparatively serious play with, hovering over it, always the potential for tragedy as Jill’s happiness hung in the balance. In contrast, Flat Spin 2: Renewing The Lease is pure comedy, nearing farce at times. There are mistaken identities, concealments, lies and confusion as the flatmates work together to try to hang onto their flat for another year. Adding to the farcical confusions are the clashing noises of this group of people’s different tastes in music and their wildly contrasting personalities, from vague musical Jan, to scatty medic, Nancy, to bossy delegator, Alice. Through it all Cathy sleeps and mutters, only to be concealed by being pushed out of the window, mattress and all. Add to these ingredients a suspicious Italian landlady and Cathy’s neurotic mother, convinced her daughter will be abducted by white slave traders, and all the ingredients for comic farce are present - especially when Jan and Nancy mistake Cathy’s Mum for the landlady.

As with all comic farce, the play needs a good fast pace and spot-on timing. Characterisation is broad and the character contrasts built in to the writing need to be exposed for full effectiveness of the piece.

 

CHARACTERS all the characters are about 19 years old.

JILL is studying English. She is a quiet girl, studious and organised - far more so than the others in the flat. There is a quiet strength in her. She is very much the hub of the whole sharing arrangement - the still centre-point around which the others revolve and whose strength they rely on. Having said this, Jill is in love and in that first dazed state in which all her normal functions are on hold. This is the Jill we see in the first few pages, but as soon as the crisis of the lease signing penetrates her consciousness, she quickly becomes the organised person she really is. She, with Alice, are the only ones who have ever met the landlady.

Though she is organised, she is not bossy in the same way that Alice is; there is always something warm and likeable about Jill which should be kept in mind when playing her.

ALICE is studying law. The intellectual [Radio 4] she is already deeply in the lawyer’s mind-set. Everything is negotiated - and if possible delegated. The way she speaks is terse, rather bossy. She is less likeable than Jill in her organisations - since she rarely takes any responsibility herself. She is the organiser of the flat rotas - who does what job in the house. Don’t make her too unlikeable, though - her congratulations of Jan’s success must be meant, though kept brief. She serves as a good contrast to the others in playing style - an upright, smartly dressed person with strong spare body language, a rather clipped manner of speaking, very definite and strong.

NANCY is studying medicine. Nancy is a fun character, rather scatty with girly mannerisms. She tends to over-dramatise and enjoys being the centre of attention. She does not like taking responsibility and allows Jill to do her thinking for her. She is also good at passing the buck; notice how she gives Jan the worst job of cleaning up the kitchen. She and Jan feed off each other’s panic and their scene together should be taken at a good fast pace. Keep Nancy’s voice light, her gestures large and dramatic [though not in the same league as Hortense], her voice and movement young and bouncy.

JAN is studying music. She is endearingly clumsy - always tripping over things - and vague. She is lost in a world of her own most of the time. Though she has to snap out of this to cope with cleaning up for the landlady, she needs to retain a fluttery vagueness to her movements, a tendency to dither, to move more slowly. Voice too is dreamier and slower than Nancy’s, even with her delight at getting onto the TV masterclass. For the purposes of the script, she should be considerably smaller than Cathy - whose jacket swamps Jan and casues one of the major comic moments. Don’t worry if you have no musicians in your group; one can get away with playing Jan without doing more than single notes on the violin onstage. However, take some coaching - these single notes need to look confident and correct.

CATHY is not a big character in this play, though she was the main one in the first Flat Spin. Drawing on this, we know she studies English and is very attractive - drawing boys to her like a magnet. Cathy’s Mum is right to be scared of what she may get up to. Her tendency to sleep late features in both plays - because she is always out partying late at night. Make sure all her mutters are audible, even sounding as sleepy as they must - because each time she is actually answering someone in the room’s question and is actually making sense, though no one listens. Cathy should be tall, and ressemble her mother at least in hair colour and perhaps height.

HORTENSE is Cathy’s Mum. Though French, presumably, there is no real need for a French accent. A very slight one would be nice perhaps, but she is a fluent English speaker who has presumably been in this country for at least 20 years to produce Cathy. However, her mannerisms can be very French, with plenty of flamboyant hand and arm gestures. She is an over-anxious mother, convinced that terrible things such as she may have read in the tabloids, are around every corner. She knows of the messiness of her daughter but has no idea of her gallivanting; if she did suspect, she would be horrified. It is clear she has come to check up on Cathy, perhaps suspecting that her daughter is likely to go off the rails away from maternal influence. She ought to be tall, like Cathy, and at least have the same hair colour as her ‘daughter.’

MRS CAPALDI is the Italian landlady. Once again, though Italian, she has lived in this country for many years and should not have an overdone ‘cod’ Italian accent. However, some accent is indicated and she is Italian in her garrulity and her dramatic delivery of lines, accompanied by strong gestures. She is a canny landlady, able to manipulate situations to her own advantage. From the state of the flat, she is one of those nightmare landladies who are not prepared to do anything except rake in the money at the end of each month. She knows she holds all the cards and uses this to her advantage. She clearly enjoys having everybody hanging on every word she says - hence her manipulation of the girls through false kindness to them, which she uses to sweeten each punch that she pulls. Her body language is aggressive and voice sharp, the tone bullying.

THE POLICE OFFICER is a very small part [doubleable with Alice.] If using this doubling to make an examinable part out of Alice, make sure you make the most of contrast between the two - using different voice and mannerisms. The young officer could have a strong accent, whereas Alice clearly hasn’t. The police officer is a firm young woman who knows her job and understands the situation quite quickly.

 

SETTING

The playwright is quite specific in her description at the beginning. You could follow this precisely if you like. For Flat Spin, I did a detailed description as follows. There are one or two differences, because it was not clear from that play that Cathy is not a legitimate member of the flat and is simply squatting, using a mattress on the floor. In this play, that is the key feature.

Since the play is naturalistic and there are no changes, make it as full and detailed as possible. You could use standing flats with doors in, if liked, rather than a box-set - though this play could use a box setting [even though I have a personal aversion to them because unless really solid they tend to break illusion when they wobble, rather than enhancing the illusion as they should!]

Personally, I would go for a studio setting - black curtains - though with clear doorways indicated. You need a clear idea in the audience’s mind that one exit is to the corridor/hallway with Nancy, Alice and Jan’s room off it as well as the front door to the outside, or to the stairs that will lead down to outside. Another distinct doorway should lead to the kitchen. If desired, part of the kitchen could be visible through the doorway, showing the end of the table piled with dirty plates and mugs. Out of sight on the table, you will need a bowl with water in, in order to make the washing up noises required in the play. If you have part of the kitchen visible in this way, you will need to use a door-flat angled, with one edge going off into the wings. Whatever is visible needs to be real-looking, creating an iluusion of more just out of sight.
The main playing area is Jill’s room. Her bed is at the back of the stage, whilst Cathy’s mattress must be right at the front. There is a poster above or near to Jill’s bed. Jills’ desk, with appropriate books and papers on it is in a downstage corner, farthest away from the doors. In front of the desk is a chair, with Cathy’s belongings - jacket and other clothes - draped on it. A small shabby sofa is set nearer the opposite corner, below the doors. Studentish clutter everywhere - books, clothes, etc. A plastic bucket for the leak near the top end of the sofa, in the way of all entrances from both hall and kitchen. This bucket is quite full.

Entrances must be visible, so I would have them raised, allowing the raised area to go someway into the room. Thus both the hall doorway and the kitchen doorway - which are close together anyway - are raised to allow entrances and exits to be visible. The raised area from the kitchen could lead right up to the back of the sofa, making sure that this item of furniture masks nothing.

A more complex setting can include the window with curtains, perhaps along a back free-standing flat. If this is used, some lighting could be set to spill through it. - Not a lot though - it is supposed to be raining.

 

LIGHTING

Lighting is very simple indeed, with only one cue apart from opening and closing. Though the day is supposed to be murky, too dim and dreary a lighting set-up would be a mistake, I feel. This is a farce and should have a ‘light’ feel to it. Try to strike a compromise - or subtly bring the lights up to brighter as the most farcical bit begins, i.e. with the entry of Mrs Capaldi until the end.

Make sure that the areas that disappear into the wings - through the two doorways - are lit up to the wings, to give the impression of the flat continuing.