Push Up

Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by Maja Zade

WHO    Robert, early thirties, young executive.

TO WHOM    The audience (see note on ‘Direct audience address’ in the introduction).

WHERE    His office in a large corporate building. The exact business of the company is unspecified.

WHEN    Present day.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED    Set in a highly successful and competitive corporation, the play moves forwards and then backwards in time. In the speech that follows, Robert is continuing with a recollection from a previous speech, ‘it was the best sex I’ve ever had’, in which he describes his and Patrizia’s first meeting. He describes how attracted they are and, without words, sneak off from the party their boss Kramer is throwing. At this point in the play, we, the audience, are privy to some of what happens next: Patrizia has been asked by her boss Kramer to get in touch with Robert about a new advertising campaign the company intends to launch. She has previously enjoyed huge success with an advertisement that she now wants to recreate in every detail; only this time, the setting will be NewYork’s Central Park. Robert hates the idea, and the couple have a bitter argument about it. Both Robert and Patrizia, wrongly assuming that their moment of passion meant nothing more to the other than a fling, are hell-bent on destroying each other. The success or failure of this new advertising campaign becomes the focus of their intent. However, it is Kramer who gets the final say. Read the play to find out who ‘wins’.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

•	The world of the play is cold and clinical. There is a buzz to be had from striking a deal or having sex with a near stranger, but it is a world without trust, loyalty or love.
•	Robert is described as ‘successful’, ‘a whiz kid’, ‘ambitious’, enthusiastic’, and everyone knows that ‘the stuff that reaches Kramer goes past his desk first’.
•	In Patrizia, he has met his match
•	The style of the play. Intercut between their scenes, he and Patrizia have almost identical monologues.

WHAT HE WANTS

•	To prove his virility.
•	To justify his handling of the situation.
•	To have Patrizia.
•	Revenge.

KEYWORDS  dark  smells  kiss  spectacular  belonged  fling  angry  pay

NB  This play offers a number of other speeches from which to choose.

Robert

It’s dark in Kramer’s office. She’s standing with her back towards me, by the window.

I’m right behind her. She smells just like I imagined. If Kramer walks in now and finds us in his office we’ll both get fired. On the spot.

I put my hands round her waist and turn her. We kiss. I push her against the window and pull up her dress. We have sex. Incredible, passionate sex.

Pause.

Afterwards we go back to the party and mingle, and Kramer says: Robert, I was about to look for you –

Short pause.

Of course I was going to call her the next day. But –

Short pause.

– but then I didn’t. I wanted to – but I didn’t. Although in my job I often make the first move, I don’t have a problem with that – in general. Either at work or –

Short pause.

– in my private life.

But – but this, this was different. This was something else. This was not just a fling. There was more at stake here. This was big.

This woman was important. This woman was spectacular –

Short pause.

You can’t just call a woman like that. It would have been a mistake, I’m still certain of that. I didn’t want her to think I needed to get in touch with her.

We were in the same league, we just worked in different areas: we were both competent, flexible, innovative and hard on ourselves and on others. Even now, in our early thirties, we had jobs others will never manage to get. She didn’t have one up on me and I didn’t have one up on her. She was like me: I was like her, and I wanted her to know that. We – her and me – we belonged together.

And that’s why I couldn’t call her.

Short pause.

But I tried to bump into her. In the car park or in the lobby by the lifts. Or in the canteen or in one of the little Italian restaurants round the corner. But I didn’t find her. I looked for her, I tried to find out when she arrived for work in the morning and when she left, but it didn’t work.

Short pause.

And she didn’t call. She didn’t get in touch. No phone call, no note. Maybe for her I was just a fling in her boss’s office. She wasn’t interested in me. She didn’t get in touch. Maybe she thought I wasn’t worth it.

She didn’t give a damn about me.

Short pause.

Gradually I got angry. I got angry because she didn’t call me.

Short pause.

I got angry because she didn’t realise who she was dealing with, what we could have been together. I meant nothing to her, and she was going to pay for that. One day I was going to really make her pay for that.

Short pause.

Nonetheless I kept on looking for her: in the car park, in the lobby, in front of the lifts, and in the canteen and after work in the little restaurants and bars round the corner. And then Kramer came up to me and said it was time for a new ad. Had I ever met Patrizia – and that I should get in touch with her. It was bound to be interesting for both of us.