Plays

View from the Shadows

Three act play.   Status: Completed.

KATHERINE LOUISE MAYO was a key figure in the world of medical research, revolutionary and controversial.   She championed many causes, new technologies working tirelessly to help those who were could be helped by new approaches in medical intervention.

JAMES FISHER a journalist, is fascinated with the person that lay behind the legend.  What caused her to withdraw from public life?  He develops an obsession, investigating her background, reading everything he can that has been written about her.  He is determined to write her definitive biography. 

He comes now to the vineyard where she spent her latter years .  Here he meets JOANNA FURTH.  Joanna was more than the sister of Katherine's last husband.  She was her close friend, her confidant and guardian of the legacy she left. 

We begin with Fisher talking to Joanna.  He is rather a colourless person.  He has let journalism be his contact with the world.  In a sense he has become a celebrity observer.  He has been writing to Joanna for years.  Sometimes she has responded, but the contact has been obviously on the surface and that is the way she has kept it. 

At first Joanna appears co-operative.  She describes her first meeting with Katherine at the time when her brother was killed in a car accident.  Through her eyes we re-visit the memory and follow the first faltering steps towards friendship.

Back in the present, Fisher notices a diary.  It is Katherine's and he asks Joanna if he can read it.  She refuses, suggesting he wait until he has more background.  There is a side of Katherine that he is not aware of.  Her dark side.  Joanna describes how she came across the diary and started to read it.  Katherine discovered her and attacked her for what she saw as a betrayal of trust.  For weeks there is tension.  They share the house but have little time together.

One night Joanna comes across Katherine going through some old papers and photographs.  She has been crying. Over a glass of wine, Katherine explains how her diary has been her way of coping with her life over the years. 

Her father had been close to her.  He had brought her gifts, introduced her to books.  But he had also molested her from an early age and repeatedly raped her, the first time on her eighth birthday.  For years she wrestled with these memories.  She had counseling and tried  to live a normal life.  Her diary is an external reality she takes out and views from time to time.  

Her fantasy becomes stronger until it consumes her.  Her mother drinks herself into oblivion and dies, leaving a letter to Katherine which is filled with bitterness. She blames her for creating a tissue of lies and driving her father to suicide. 

By this time, Katherine has been wooed and wed by Christopher Mayo.  His violence towards her is on a mental and emotional level.  He tries to break her --- reduce her into a pliable wife molded to suit his needs.  He plays mental games; sets her up and then tears her down.  

Her friend, Karl Ludeke now takes a greater significance in her life.  A huge bluff man, he has loads of energy and an all pervading warmth . He gives Katherine the confidence on believing in herself and her own beliefs. 

After a  violent episode, she leaves her husband and  to stay with Karl. He wants to keep things on a friendship level.  She will have none of it, wanting a full relationship with no barriers between them.  They begin an idyllic period together sharing their dreams and excitement.   They explore each other as children do.  

Katherine treasures her time with Karl, realising that it is limited.  Soon afterwards he slips into a coma and dies.  One day she discovers a letter he has written her.  In it, he pours out his heart to her.  Tells of his hurt at not being able to give her what he wanted in their life together. 

Years later after her rise and fall in the medical scene, she goes to a vineyard on a whim.  She watches a young man stacking crates of bottles.  They begin talking.  She stays for dinner and that night.  The next day, she begins her life with Paul Furth, her last great love.   

He dies in a car accident at the time of bringing Joanna to meet Katherine.  After Paul's death, Katherine becomes immersed in the day to day running of the vineyard.  She finds the physical work has a cleansing effect on her.   

One night Joanna finds Katherine staring into space.  Katherine explains her memory is playing tricks on her.  Her mind wanders and she is finding it hard to keep track of conversations.  At first the fear is that she has some form of dementia.  The diagnosis is worse than expected.

Fisher begins to suspect some of what he has been told. There are inconsistencies. Who was the nurse who was supposed to have looked after her?  He sets out to sought out the threads of the story and is determined to make sense of the entire story.

Three separate plays with a common theme.   Status: Completed.

Two thousand years on we are in the tent of  MATHAIS BEN ABRAHIM outside Jerusalem.  It is a time for a gathering of friends and a revisiting of their shared past.  A faint breeze lifts the flap of the tent as voices approach.  Mardia, Mathias’ daughter precedes him inside.  Other visitors soon join them. Each of those gathered shares a tale of what they have been doing over the years.  Finally it is the revelations of Mathias, Drusilla, a Greek friend of his youth and Jacob his oldest fiend which stirs everyone most of all.

Part III:

Time has moved forward again.  We are now in the present.  Michael Fowler, a prince of industry, has returned home after having a health crises.  He is not over his problem yet and has to wrestle with impositions of friends and family who are committed to restoring his health.  In the end he accepts their ministrations, but only because he realises that they can't succeed and that death is catching up with him.  Knowing this and wanting to have the last laugh, he arranges a rather gruesome occurrence at his own wake.

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