ABSOLUTION
Absolution was commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Institute for The Waltz Project and first performed at the Battersea Arts Centre in London in December 1999. This production was directed by Tom Morris and performed by Malika Booker.
Malika Booker’s one-woman play Absolution is a heart-breaking story of a whirlwind romance which ends with broken promises, betrayal and loneliness. Inspired by her Guyanese-Grenadian heritage and the stories from the Windrush generation, Malika tells the story of Shevaun and Aubrey who met on the MV Empire Windrush, a ship which carried 493 passengers from the Caribbean to Tilbury, England in 1948. The play centres on Grenadian Shevaun, the eldest child in her family who wants to pursue a career in nursing in England. The play opens on an emotional scene with the ship in the near distance as Shevaun says her final farewell to her family. As the ship sets sails, Shevaun is determined to keep her promise of sending money for her family and one day returning back home. On the ship she meets and marries the charming Guyanese man Aubrey, a talented architect who is destined for greatness in England. However, when they arrive in England the reality could not be further away from what they imagined. Shevaun falls pregnant before she has even started her nursing course, Aubrey struggles to find any work as an architect, instead he is forced to work in menial low-paid jobs washing dishes and working for London Underground and the married couple are forced to live in a house with five other families. Fed up with his dreary life in England, Aubrey persuades Shevaun to relocate with him back to his home country Guyana. But the new move has a negative effect on Shevaun and their marriage. Shevaun is ostracised by Aubrey’s family, betrayed by her husband and left with the guilt of a broken promise to herself and her family. As her marriage takes a turn for the worse, Shevaun turns to her only confidant on the island, Aubrey’s brother Gordon.
About the playwright
Malika Booker is a writer, poet, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist who was born in Britain and spent thirteen years of her childhood in Guyana before returning to the UK. Booker began her career writing and performing poetry, before taking her hand to stage plays and novels. Her poetry has been widely published in several anthologies, including Ten New Poets (2010), Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry (1998). It has also been published in her own collections, Breadfruit (2007) and Pepper Seed (2013), as well as performed internationally on stage and radio. Booker made the transition from poetry to playwriting in 1999 when she was commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Institute to create a response to the bicentenary of the birth of the waltz, for which Booker wrote her first produced play, Absolution. Since then she has written a collection of one-woman plays including Unplanned (2007). Throughout her career, Booker has been affiliated with the British Council, Apple and Snakes Company, Nitro Theatre Company and Royal Shakespeare Company (where she is currently the first Poet in Residence). In 2001, she co-founded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, a writers’ collective based in London and Chicago, to provide support and guidance to emerging and professional multicultural writers.
Summary (Extract)
In an attempt to satisfy her husband’s appetite for traditional Guyanese food, Grenadian SHEVAUN visits her local market for recipes and ingredients, but gets more than she bargains for when she overhears the market women gossip about her husband’s infidelity. An exasperated Shevaun sits on a chair in front of the front door waiting to confront her husband.
Well Aubrey walk in smiling. So ah say, ‘good afternoon Aubrey,’ Ah say, ‘Aubrey darling you had a nice time today? yuh had a nice day?’ He say, ‘yes.’ Ah say, ‘good.’ Ah say ‘yuh had a nice night on Friday night Aubrey?’ Aubrey start to scratch he head and think. Ah say, ‘well since we playing these questions and answers ah want to ask yuh, yuh and yuh family had a nice dinner on Sunday Aubrey?’ And Aubrey start to mumble. Ah say, ‘ooh,’ ah say ‘ah asking you questions and yuh thinking Aubrey! yuh thinking! ! When ah was standing on the ship minding mi own business and yuh was walking up and down the dance floor yuh had a lot to say for yuh self, yuh wasn’t thinking then, nooo, yuh wasn’t thinking and when you was dancing asking mi to marry yuh, putting up yuh long campaign, yuh wasn’t thinking then, nooo, yuh wasn’t thinking! Nooo! And when we was in England and ah had mi obligations to mi family and yuh knew what yuh wanted, yuh had plenty of words then to tell me Aubrey. yuh wasn’t thinking. But when yuh family was coming to mi house disrespecting me, I didn’t know they was disrespecting me because they taking they leaf from yuh. Yuh walking out deh… Aubrey yuh mean to say ah had to be in the market, in the market getting my affairs from market women Aubrey. Eh! That is what yuh bringing me to and then ah asking yuh questions and yuh just standing there and yuh thinking Aubrey,’ Ah say, ‘but Aubrey what have you got to say for yuh self?’ And yuh know, when people, they guilty as sin, so they ain’t have nothing to say so they does just pull things out of the air. Aubrey look at me and tell me well at least he mother never open she legs, ‘what,’ twelve time to make no twelve children.
Ah say, ‘and … that’s … what … you … have … to … tell … me … Aubrey.’ Ah say, ‘eh he,’ ah say, ‘that’s what you have to tell…’ Ah say, ‘let me tell you something at least my mother open she legs twelve times to make twelve children, ah am one of those children Aubrey, yuh marry one of those children. Eh! When yuh family was doing me all they was doing I din bring up…ah never cuss yuh family in mi life, never bring yuh family into we argument. Well if yuh bringing me family into yuh argument ah have to tell you something. Leh mi tell you something. Yuh see mi mother she marry mi father. From the time she marry he, he knew where he obligations lie. He wouldn’t ah let no sisters come to the house bringing food for him. Cos he woulda realise he cut he nappy strings already and how he ain’t got no bottle in he mouth. He would ah cut that tie already. So if yuh want to talk to me bout mi family, let me tell yuh bout your family and yuh, cos you are not a man Aubrey, you are a little boy! You are a little boy! Yuh can’t stand up for what yuh want in life. Furthermore tek yuh things, tek yuh things, go on and get out mi house today Aubrey. Yuh not staying in this house today Aubrey / and Aubrey just (She slaps her right palm against her cheek and stands there in shocked silence.)
Aubrey … slap … me! Aubrey trying to be wrong and strong and slap me! I CAN’T BELIEVE AUBREY LOSE HIS FUCKING MIND IN HERE TODAY AND THINK THAT HE SLAPPING ME SHEVAUN AFTER ALL HE PUT ME THROUGH.
And then he standing there and he just smiling at me! He smiling! And I looking at him and I thinking ‘if is me and you you want to have it out today then me is me and you having it out and I sight ah broom stick and I thinking, ‘I going to take that smile of you blasted face today Aubrey’ and I pick up the broom stick and ah looking at Aubrey and ah thinking after all you put me through you have the fucking cheek to slap me and ah pick up the broomstick (Mimes clasping a broom stick with both hands.) and I look at Aubrey and I look him and I look at the smile (Holds on to the broom stick with both hands and slashes it into the air each time she says hit him.) And I hit him. And I hit him. And I hit him. And I hit him. And I keep hitting him. Aubrey start to brawl for murder and police and ambulance and everything. And the neighbours pulling Aubrey and they pulling me, (Moves backwards, arms pulling back as if someone is pulling them, but she pulls it away to deliver more hits.) And I still hitting him. And I hitting him. And I hitting him.
I woulda kill Aubrey in that house today. My father never raise his hand to me and my husband coming in my house have to be wrong and hitting me. NOOOO!
He had to sleep out that night, because he knew, he would ah dead that day.