Swarms

Marco Morana

Illustration by Yeow Su Xian

SCENE THREE

ANNA remains seated. Light on SAMUEL, who is sitting up in a hospital bed, or something like it. A gastric feeding bag hangs next to him—SAMUEL is not attached to the tube dangling from it. There is an empty chair on the other side of the bed.

ANNA:  Do you think it went well? I didn’t come across like a Catholic stick-in-the-mud?

SAMUEL:  He got you with the video.

ANNA:  Do you think so?

SAMUEL:  To be honest, Mum, that video is obscene.

ANNA:  People are frightened of sick bodies.

SAMUEL:  Spastic bodies.

ANNA:  Stop it, Samuel.

SAMUEL:  Are you going to let me die?

ANNA:  Don’t be foolish.

SAMUEL:  How’s things with your suitor?

ANNA:  I know what I’ll do, I’ll call the committee. We need to tone down our message. I wouldn’t want the court to see us as a bunch of fanatics.

(ANNA picks up her mobile phone.)

SAMUEL:  Well? Have you asked him his name yet? Or did you just let him catch another whiff of it?

ANNA:  Whiff?

(ANNA’s looking for a number.)

SAMUEL:  Did you let him buy you the usual packet of crisps at the vending machine?

ANNA:  He’s always offering. But it’s not like he pays or anything.

SAMUEL:  How does he get the crisps, then?

ANNA:  He punches the machine. One punch, and the crisps come out.

SAMUEL:  Big man.

(ANNA puts the phone to her ear.)

SAMUEL:  He does know that’s theft.

ANNA:  I tell him every time.

SAMUEL:  Who would have thought. The pious, devout schoolteacher, in love with a crisps thief.

ANNA:  I’m not in love with Ivan.

SAMUEL:  Ivan?

(ANNA has given herself away. She puts down her phone.)

SAMUEL:  Well well. We have a name. Do tell us more.

ANNA:  I don’t know any more.

SAMUEL:  Please, the curiosity’s killing me.

ANNA:  Nothing, he’s that girl’s father. Emma from number 46.

SAMUEL:  Emma?

ANNA:  The girl who dived into an empty swimming pool.

SAMUEL:  Oh yeah, the one who topped herself but didn’t quite make it.

ANNA:  And he just sits in front of that vending machine all day.

SAMUEL:  What does he do, in front of the vending machine all day?

ANNA:  I don’t know. Do you think it’s normal, for a man to spend his days staring at a machine, doing nothing?

SAMUEL:  Do you think it’s normal for a man to fall in love with you?

ANNA:  What about his daughter?

SAMUEL:  Maybe he can’t bear to see her in that state.

ANNA:  I don’t understand. I just can’t understand him.

SAMUEL:  So today you went to the vending machine for a coffee. Ivan was there, pulled off his pathetic little performance to try and get into your pants, the punch and all that, and then you . . .

(He waits for ANNA to go on, but she remains silent.)

SAMUEL:  And then you . . .

ANNA:  Nothing, he pestered me.

SAMUEL:  Pestered?

ANNA:  First, he stole the packet of crisps.

SAMUEL:  With one of his fierce right hooks.

ANNA:  Then he started with the questions.

SAMUEL:  And so the gruff and clumsy Ivan finally made his move . . .

ANNA:  Hardly.

SAMUEL:  . . . and turned into Ivan the Terrible, throwing the chaste, upstanding Anna into bodily turmoil, which of course she’d been waiting for with bated breath.

ANNA:  Stop it.

SAMUEL:  Flowers? Naughty letters? Serenades?

ANNA:  Samuel, please.

SAMUEL:  Age?

ANNA:  Sixty-two.

SAMUEL:  Hair?

ANNA: Curly.

SAMUEL:  A whim for every curl.

ANNA:  Amazing hair for his age.

SAMUEL:  Well then, he’s the man of your life.

ANNA:  He moved here three months ago. He used to be a librarian, he’s retired now.

SAMUEL:  Married?

ANNA:  Divorced. He has an allotment.

SAMUEL:  Green fingers, as well. Is there a gift he doesn’t have?

ANNA:  It’s all grown over since his daughter ended up here. Everything’s dried up now.

SAMUEL:  You picked up quite a bit of information, for someone who wasn’t listening.

ANNA:  We just talk and talk, even though we’re perfect strangers.

SAMUEL:  Watch out, you’ll have to get down to the nitty-gritty at some point.

ANNA:  Do you think I was too frosty?

SAMUEL:  Maybe. But you can fix that. Go back to the vending machine. Let him steal you another packet of crisps.

ANNA:  I’ll get gastritis.

SAMUEL:  The side effects of love.

ANNA:  Anyway, he’s asked me out to dinner. A kebab, nearby.

SAMUEL:  Never mind gastritis, there’s going to be diarrhoea.

ANNA:  I don’t even know what that tastes like.

SAMUEL:  Diarrhoea?

ANNA:  Kebab.

SAMUEL:  Better than my tube lunch.

ANNA:  Don’t you think it may be too young for me?

SAMUEL:  Don’t you think that he may be a tight-fisted bastard?

ANNA:  You think so?

SAMUEL:  It should be a fish dinner, on a first date.

ANNA:  I get the feeling he wants to keep it simple, to put me at ease.

SAMUEL:  Yes, yes of course, definitely.

ANNA:  I could suggest somewhere nicer.

SAMUEL:  You could just tell him you’ll pick up the tab.

ANNA:  But then, is he going to think I don’t like kebab? That I’m too old?

SAMUEL:  Mum, I’m sorry, but what is he? Isn’t it time to wake up and smell the kebab, Mother?

ANNA:  Stop being an idiot.

SAMUEL:  Right, so let’s get to the point: Did Princess Anna accept or decline this invitation from the curly-haired thief?

ANNA:  I don’t have time for this sort of thing.

SAMUEL:  Mum, you have tons of time. It’s summer, school’s out, you haven’t gone on holiday in years.

(Silence.)

SAMUEL:  Look, it’s all the same to me if you’re not here for one evening.

ANNA:  It’s not just about you.

SAMUEL:  Then who?

(Silence.)

SAMUEL:  You mean Dad?

ANNA:  It feels like yesterday.

SAMUEL:  Dad’s been with his maker these fifteen years.

ANNA:  But I love him like the first day.

SAMUEL:  He’s the only one you’ve ever fucked, isn’t he?

ANNA:  Samuel!

SAMUEL:  Forgive me, Mother, what I meant is, was my esteemed and never forgotten father the only stallion with whom you ventured into the remote territory of the marital bed?

ANNA:  You imbecile.

SAMUEL:  Picture Ivan punching that vending machine, how it trembles and quakes, picture his mighty hand stealthily sliding in to extract the slippery packet, the treasure that will bring joy to his Princess Anna . . .

ANNA:  I can’t.

SAMUEL:  Someone knocked.

ANNA:  What?

SAMUEL:  Someone knocked. It must be him.

ANNA:  What do I do now?

SAMUEL:  Unbutton your blouse. Actually no, just take all your clothes off.

ANNA:  Do you think I should let him in?

SAMUEL:  Everywhere.

ANNA:  Come in.

(SARA appears.)

SAMUEL:  Oh fuck.

ANNA:  Sara.

SAMUEL:  Here we go . . .

SARA:  I knocked, you didn’t answer. I didn’t think I’d find you here.

ANNA:  What do you mean, you didn’t think you’d find me here?

SARA:  Isn’t it Friday?

ANNA:  It’s Thursday, actually. My turn.

SARA:  I don’t think so.

ANNA:  I never get my days mixed up.

SARA:  It’s Friday.

ANNA:  Thursday, Sara, Thursday.

SARA:  Look at your phone.

(ANNA picks up her phone.)

SARA:  It’s Friday.

ANNA:  You’re right. Now that you have power of attorney, you can ask me to leave.

SARA:  I wouldn’t stoop to that.

ANNA:  And I would. Is that what you think?

SARA:  We’ll never get anywhere like this.

ANNA:  Why did you get power of attorney?

SARA:  Because this can’t go on any more.

ANNA:  I’m his mother.

SARA:  And I’m his family, Anna.

(Silence.)

SARA:  Let’s just drop it, there’s no point with you.

ANNA:  Why no point?

SARA:  Because you’re blinkered.

ANNA:  I’m blinkered? I am? What about you?

SARA:  Your turn is tomorrow.

ANNA:  You think I’m some crazy Catholic, don’t you? Just say it.

SARA:  If the press find out you’re not sticking to your visiting days . . .

ANNA:  And now we’re on to threats. A schoolteacher shouldn’t behave like this.

SARA:  A schoolteacher should be a good mother.

ANNA:  Or a good wife, like you. You have the public on your side now, you feel strong, you feel untouchable, to the point that you have the gall to come in here and threaten me.

SARA:  One last time: I’ll call the press. I will.

ANNA:  There’s no need, Sara. You can keep your Friday. I’m going.

(ANNA makes to go. Then she turns back.)

ANNA:  You may be his family as far as the judges are concerned. But I gave birth to him. Samuel is my flesh and blood and he always will be. Always. But that may be hard for you to understand, what with not having a child of your own.

(ANNA walks off. SARA holds back tears. Then she sits down. She pulls out a crossword magazine. She looks at it without opening it.)

SAMUEL:  Why did you have to kick her out like that? You could have swapped days. She could have stayed this evening. You won, Sara. That appeal is hopeless. Not long now till I kick the bucket. A nice little sedative and after nine years, this pain in the neck will be gone once and for all.

(SARA opens her magazine.)

SAMUEL:  She’s just desperate, don’t you understand? She’s blinkered, I get it. Actually she’s a bitch, I’ll give you that. That thing about you not having a child, she could have kept that to herself. But she loved you once. Maybe you don’t know this, but she was the one who wouldn’t stop going on about you. “Sara’s the right woman, a teacher like me, marry her Samuel, listen to your mother.”

(SARA puts down the magazine.)

SAMUEL:  You can’t concentrate. Your mind takes off all by itself, you can’t stop it. Your thoughts pile up on top of each other and leave you in a daze. You haven’t been able to do anything but the crossword. In nine years. It’s torture. And the icing on the cake is, you can’t even talk about it too much. Because a good wife couldn’t possibly be suffering while taking care of her husband.

(SARA stands up and begins a sequence of repeated movements.)

SAMUEL:  I know what’s eating you. Why won’t you talk to me? I’m here. I am half dead in this cot but I’m also here.

SARA is attempting to retrace actions performed at a certain point in the past, a sort of uncoordinated, repetitive dance.

SARA:  Steak. Burger. Steak. Burger. Steak. Burger.

SAMUEL:  Give up your power of attorney. I want to wait. In two or three years they might find a cure, I could go back to how I was. What’s another couple of years?

SARA:  Steak. Burger. Steak. Burger. Steak. Burg—

(SARA stops. She can’t remember. She’s confused.)

SAMUEL:  Have you been taking your pills?

(SARA keeps ignoring him.)

SAMUEL:  You have to take your pills. You have to stick to the prescription.

SARA:  Rare, but not too rare.

(SARA performs the same movements again.)

SAMUEL:  There was a knife.

SARA:  There was a knife. It must have been a steak. For a burger, a fork would have been enough. There would have been no need for a kn—

SAMUEL:  Logic has nothing to do with it.

SARA:  It really was a steak.

SAMUEL:  Sara. Leave me with my mother. Move to a new city, make another life for yourself, forget about me.

(SARA sits down and picks up the magazine. She opens it this time.)

SAMUEL:  There, good girl.

SARA:  Thirteen down. This word can also mean its own opposite.

SAMUEL:  How many letters?

SARA:  This word can also mean its own opposite.

SAMUEL:  Cleave.

SARA:  There’s a v second-to-last.

SAMUEL:  Cleave. To separate or sever. It can also mean to adhere or cling, to remain attached, devoted, faithful to.

(Silence.)

SARA:  Cleave, maybe?

SAMUEL:  Maybe I told you that?

SARA:  It is cleave.

SAMUEL:  Why did you pretend you couldn’t hear me?

SARA:  Your . . .

SAMUEL:  Good. Talk to me, Sara. My what?

SARA:  Your life is not a life.

SAMUEL:  All right. Then tell me, what’s the criteria for establishing what is and what isn’t a life?

(Silence.)

SAMUEL:  Tell me the criteria for establishing what is and what isn’t a life.

SARA:  Dignity.

SAMUEL:  Too vague, Sara, too subjective. We all have our own concept of dignity. Tell me at least one universal criteria for establishing whether mine is or isn’t a life. Whether or not my life makes sense.

SARA:  This is absurd. You can’t speak. And I’m crazy.

translated from the Italian by Marinella Mezzanotte

Listen to the original read by the author:

On the first day of 2020, I resolved to make theatre a bigger part of my life, and theatre translation a bigger part of my work: a spectacularly ill-timed resolution that had been brewing since the fourth Out of the Wings (OOTW) festival the previous summer. As I applied for a place on the theatre translation strand of the 2020 British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) summer school (and failed to get to Italy Uncovered – new plays from Italy, a festival of contemporary Italian theatre), the play that would make a theatre translator of me—Stormi by Marco Morana—had its first staged reading at Il Copione, a showcase for texts by contemporary Italian playwrights, in December 2019, and was one of three Italian works selected by EURODRAM for 2020. It would have a second reading at Evergreen Fest in July 2020.

Stormi was going places, and so was I. Then most of the world shut down, and nobody went anywhere for a long time. When I was informed by BCLT that the summer school would take place online, I withdrew my application: after OOTW, and previous experiences on translation courses, I didn’t want to learn theatre translation from a digitally mediated distance.

I may have been giving up on theatre, but theatre was not giving up on me. By June, I had almost accidentally found myself on a wonderful Zoom course on adapting prose for the stage—Playing With Prose, thank you School of Advanced Studies at the University of London—and painfully missed the deadline for the Foreign Affairs theatre translation mentorship after a well-known Italian playwright ignored my emails asking for permission to translate one of his works. That was when, to my surprise, I was offered a place by BCLT: it turns out that my self-pitying cancellation email had slipped by one of the most competent and efficient people on the planet. I accepted before I could change my mind.

Cue my frantic scramble for a working text, trawling through Italian plays that I was sure had not been translated into English, but felt no emotional connection with whatsoever. “I don’t have to care about this,” I kept saying to myself. “I just need to translate an excerpt for the course.” But what is the point if I don’t care?

I remembered that I had many colleagues I could ask for help, and Edward Fortes, from the Italy Uncovered collective, eventually sent me Stormi, introducing me to his friend Marco Morana, who kindly allowed me to use part of his play as a working text. Once I started translating, I couldn’t stop.

And if all that sounds like a rom-com, it felt like one too. I had formed a deep emotional connection with this play before even reading the first line, and my translation of it resonates with the impact of that connection.

The excerpt I chose for the BCLT workshop is the same scene I later decided to submit to Asymptote, and for the same reasons. It is beautifully balanced, based on a triangular structure that shows us all three characters interacting with each other in turn, while touching on the personal, political and philosophical aspects of the story. At the apex is a rare meeting between the two women, a brief and brutal exchange that I translated while extremely distressed: it seemed the best time to translate a painful text, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do with myself at that moment.

With the mercurial protagonist teasing his wife and mother without mercy as he takes on different personas, humour is as important an element of this scene—and the whole play—as grief, anger and longing. My emotional connection with the text helped me render its variegated tonal palette: I had never felt more confident following my gut while translating a literary text. I have been asked about the process of translating the crossword clue that appears in this excerpt—the original uses pauroso, which can mean either “fearful’ or “fearsome”—and while at first I was indeed fearful of tackling that section, I found that I knew instinctively which English contronym would be the best replacement.

Italianists will have noticed that I also changed the play’s title; stormo means “flock” rather than “swarm.” This choice forced me to rework an image employed near the end of the play, which was quite a significant change and one that I can justify aesthetically and semantically; but, again, it came down to instinct rather than research. Swarms felt the same in the pit of my stomach, and I knew without doubt that I could trust the feeling.

Marco Morana was born in 1986 and lives in Rome. He is an alumnus of the Teatès theatre school in Palermo and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome.

Stormi (Swarms) is the first of his works to be translated into English. The play was developed as part of NdN Network drammaturgia Nuova, a residency aimed at emerging playwrights in Italy, and went on to win the Premio InediTO—Colline di Torino for unproduced works. It was also commended at the Premio Hystrio – Scritture di Scena award for writing for performance, and was one of three Italian works selected in 2020 by EURODRAM, where the translated title appears as Flocks. Il Copione, a showcase for texts by contemporary Italian playwrights, staged a public reading of Swarms in December 2019, while another took place at Evergreen Fest in early 2020. Swarms had its first reading in English translation online in March 2021 thanks to a grant by Out Of The Wings, and was produced and directed by Jack Tarlton, with Robert Gilbert, Gillian Bevan and Siubhan Harrison.

Among Marco Morana’s other works for theatre are Biografia dell’Inquietudine (A Biography of Disquiet; 2019), after The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa; Alle 20 precise (At 20:00 hours Exactly; 2020); and Le scoperte geografiche (Geographical Discoveries; 2016). He has collaborated with the Piccolo Teatro in Milan by contributing a piece to the project Abbecedario Civile – L di Lavoro (A Civil ABC – L for Labour), and again during the pandemic with his short play Katàbasis, written for the podcast series Abbecedario per il mondo nuovo (ABC for the New World) one of several pieces he has written originally for audio.

Some of his short stories have been published online in Verde Rivista, 8×8 Oblique 2016 and 2020 respectively, The Catcher, Lunario, Crack, Carie, inutile, L’ircocervo and Altri Animali. He also works as a screenwriter and occasionally as an actor.

Marinella Mezzanotte is a writer who began translating from her heritage language into English in 2012. She graduated in audiovisual translation from the University of Roehampton with a partial translation of Piazza d’Italia, the first novel by the celebrated Italian author Antonio Tabucchi. She has edited several literary translations and translated Amarantha by Elena Traina, published in autumn 2021 as the debut title of Kurumuru Books, an independent publisher dedicated to children’s literature in translation. In the spring of 2021, she co-founded with four translation and theatre colleagues who work in Italian and English, the theatre reading group New Plays from Italy, with the aim of highlighting work by young Italian playwrights.

Her short story Yesterday’s Pies was highly commended at the 2013 Bridport Prize and appears in that year’s anthology. In 2021, she collaborated with the London-based company Futures Theatre on the drama documentary podcast series Fully Amplified, writing the monologue Geometries of Love and Power.

She was born in 1970 and has lived in London most of her life.