Draft Two
10 / 05 / 2023
A working document to develop the ideas for the script of The Crowboy ...
SCENE ONE
A stage with a scaffold lighting tower in one corner and a bed downstage left.
One performer is sitting on a bed under a spotlight:
VOICEOVERS - various recorded voices played from speakers in the stage space. They consist either of dramatic elements or of other kinds of voiceovers including the interviews about crows etc.
PART ONE
SOUND - the sound of crows calling to one another
VOICEOVER 1:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - the recording fades out to the sound of the crows again and then silence.
PERSON A - stands up slowly on the bed and looks up at the scaffolding tower.
I don’t remember the first time I saw it — them — in the tree outside my bedroom window. All I remember is the sense that it wasn’t the first time. I knew I’d seen them before.
Oh! They’re back!
Bright eyes. Dirty hands, dirty face. A ragged shape, black. A shadow in the sodium light of the street lamp.
But it wasn’t new. It wasn’t a new feeling. It was déjà-vu. It was like they had always been there, watching me even in my cradle.
They didn’t come every night. Not even most nights. But often enough, when I waited for them, they would come.
Mostly I would fall asleep, curled on my left side. The curtains wide open, the blinds pulled up. I would try to stay awake, stare at the empty outline of the tree, until my eyes burned and swam and my thoughts turned strange, blurring into a dream.
Most nights, that was it. I would wake in the morning, on my back, on my stomach, or on my right side, the tree still empty. Mouth dry, curtains still open, sunlight on my face.
Naked in winter. Clothed in summer. The tree was my opposite.
But some nights ... some nights, I would wake in the dark and they were there. My breath would catch in my throat. My heart beat fast in my chest. I dared not move
We watched one another.
...
I ... I don’t remember falling asleep. I never did. But I must have done, every time. Because I would wake up and the tree would be empty again.
...
PERSON A - lays down on the bed slowly, curled on their side and looks up at the tower.
SOUND - crows cawing.
PART TWO
VOICEOVER 2:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - stands up suddenly and takes on a different persona.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we should have known. Kids say all sorts of things, don’t they. Sometimes you listen and sometimes you don’t. You can’t take every little thing seriously or it would be the end of the world every week.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame us. To say we should have done something to stop her. People surprise you. They have lives of their own. Private thoughts and private things going on. Even people you think you know. Even people you see every day. Even your own kids.
They think things you didn’t think they could possibly think. Keep secrets.
She didn’t fit in. Not at home. Not at school. Nothing was ever right. Nothing was ever good enough. We tried our best with her, I promise you that. No one could have tried harder than we did. But there was always something wrong.
And now she’s gone. And, I say this carefully, knowing it won’t go further, because some people wouldn’t understand, but I’m relieved.
Course I miss her. But, well.
And no, we won’t be going around looking for her. She knows where we are if she needs us.
PERSON A - sits back down on the bed, hands clasped between their knees.
SOUND - crows cawing.
PART THREE
VOICEOVER 3:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - remains seated on the bed.
I first heard the story on TV. It was a long time ago so the details are already hazy, but I’ll tell you what I can. I was a child. It was on daytime television. An interview with an actress. I can’t remember which actress now, but it was a TV actress. Everyone would have known her name at the time. I can’t even remember her face.
There was an actress called Rula Lenska. She was British Polish. It definitely wasn’t her who was being interviewed, but she’s become a kind of stand in in my mind. Maybe just because she’s from the right era and she’s Polish. I mean, I even know she doesn’t look right. Rula had this bright red hair and a kind of impressive, hard beauty. This actress was different. Softer.
Anyway.
She was talking about a play she wanted to make. I think it was just a supplementary question, really. Not the main meat of the interview. I think the interview was really about a play, or a TV show, that she was already in.
The Crowboy, she said it was a Polish folktale about a child from a village who wasn’t a girl or boy. The child was driven out and lived in a tree at the edge of the village and they watched the villages coming and going. All the villagers pretended they couldn’t see the child, but some of them must have left food for it.
I don’t know anymore how much of the story is what she said in the interview and how much I thought about it. I imagined the Crowboy up in that tree, dressed in rags.
Why were they called a Crow boy when she said they weren’t a boy or a girl? And why crow? Just because they lived in a tree and watched?
I thought about that story a lot.
I tried to write a book about it once, but never finished. In the book there was another character. A girl from the village who watched the Crowboy from her window in her house at the edge of the village every night before she went to sleep. I guess the Crowboy could have been older by then, still small, maybe, but weathered from the wind and the rain. I imagined there was a fair in the town where the Crowboy came down from the tree to find the girl. No one knew it was them because everyone was in fancy dress. And then they ran away together somewhere.
When the internet came around, I searched for the story of the Crowboy online. I couldn’t ever find anything. Not even now, when the internet knows everything.
I suppose it’s possible that the folk story was forgotten. It’s also possible that the actress invented it.
PERSON A - turns and rolls onto their side on the bed.
SOUND - crows cawing
PART FOUR
VOICEOVER 4:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - stands, turns, stares at the tower.
I left bread and sometimes sweets. Not every day, but often enough. At the bottom of the tree. We didn’t have much extra but we had enough. My mum did it too. She knew I knew but we never talked about it. I caught mum once, in the kitchen. She was serving out an extra, half-size portion of dinner into a little plastic cat bowl. She said she’d made too much so she was saving it for later, but then when I asked her about it again, she pretended not to know what I was talking about and looked at me long and hard. I knew not to ask her again.
Maybe other people did the same. They must have. The scraps we put out can’t have been enough. Maybe it came down from the tree during the night and foraged or found stuff in the trash. Maybe it hunted.
Perhaps people left clothes for it, too. Shoes, maybe. Or blankets. I don’t think any of the men would have left it stuff, though. Not even scraps. It was them who told us what we could see and not see, I think. Though perhaps the women were the ones who decided what we could talk about and not talk about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all the women were soft and gentle and all the men hard and cold. But you know what it’s like. Except Paul. Maybe Paul gave it food too. Paul was different.
Where did it go when it wasn’t in the tree? Who was it? Why didn’t it just leave?
There’s so much about it that I think about now and I don’t understand. When you are a child you just accept things. The Crowboy lives in a tree at the edge of the town. No one looks at them and no one talks about them. I just accepted that. I asked questions, like all kids do. But not the right ones.
PERSON A - stays where they are watching the tower.
SOUND - crows cawing, but more this time
PART FIVE
VOICEOVER 5:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns, faces the audience.
I know it wasn’t good enough. But it was something. It was something, and for a while it looked as though there wasn’t going to be anything at all I could do. But we made a bargain.
Perhaps it was selfish, to want to keep them close. Perhaps it would have been better if I had just let them go completely. But ... at least like this, I could still see them even if we couldn’t talk.
At least it was something.
But now, now, this has happened. And it’s all wrong. It’s worse than ever before.
PERSON A - puts their hands over their eyes
SOUND - crows cawing raucously
PART SIX
VOICEOVER 6:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns, faces the audience.
I ... I knew something was going to happen. Before. When we were all getting ready, I just had this feeling in my stomach.
I kind of suddenly felt as though I was going through the motions, you know? It was as though, one minute I was with my friends, laughing and joking, getting ready for the big party. And then the next, I was on the outside, watching. As though the volume has been turned down and I can’t quite catch my breath. Or like everything is in slow motion.
Palms sweaty. I lose the thread of the conversation. Everyone else is laughing but I don’t know what the joke is anymore.
Usually, that kind of feeling doesn’t last long. Know what I mean? It’s there, but then gone before you know it, or not even there long enough for anyone to notice. Or if they do notice, you can just laugh it off, because the feeling is retreating already.
‘Oh, you look like a ghost,’ they say.
‘Someone must have walked over my grave.’ That’s what you’re supposed to reply. Laugh it off.
But this feeling, it stayed with me all evening. I danced, but I felt like I was somewhere else. When my boyfriend kissed me, I pushed him away. It felt wrong. I locked myself in the toilet and just sat there, head in my hands, until someone banged on the door and asked if I was OK.
I was relieved when the night was over. Dad was early to come and pick me up and I went and got in the car as soon as I saw him. He looked worried but he didn’t ask. He’d tell my mum and then she’d come and ask me. That’s how it worked.
‘Your dad was worried about you last night. Said you were a bit quiet. Is everything OK with Daren, love?’
That’s what she would say.
I fell asleep easily, which was a surprise — no dreams — and when I woke up the feeling had finally lifted. I felt elated. I couldn’t even remember what the feeling had been like.
But when I ran downstairs, my mum was sitting at the kitchen table, crying. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened for a long time, and when she did she pulled me into her arms.
I walked past the tree at the edge of town later that day. I couldn’t help it. I had to see. There were other people there already when I got there. The tree was empty, of course, and we just looked up at it. They felled it the same week. Chopped it up for firewood.
PERSON A - puts their hands over their eyes
SOUND - crows cawing raucously
PART SEVEN
VOICEOVER 7:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns back to the tower.
Crows gather.
They gather to forage and feed. To fight and to play. To roost and to sleep.
When I first saw the crowboy, I think I knew they would gather me to them ... I think I knew they were waiting and I was waiting too.
We were both waiting.
PERSON A - changes into the crow costume and slowly climbs the tower. When they are on the top of the tower, they perform a movement sequence.
SOUND - increasing sound of crows cawing. Cuts to silence.
A stage with a scaffold lighting tower in one corner and a bed downstage left.
One performer is sitting on a bed under a spotlight:
VOICEOVERS - various recorded voices played from speakers in the stage space. They consist either of dramatic elements or of other kinds of voiceovers including the interviews about crows etc.
PART ONE
SOUND - the sound of crows calling to one another
VOICEOVER 1:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - the recording fades out to the sound of the crows again and then silence.
PERSON A - stands up slowly on the bed and looks up at the scaffolding tower.
I don’t remember the first time I saw it — them — in the tree outside my bedroom window. All I remember is the sense that it wasn’t the first time. I knew I’d seen them before.
Oh! They’re back!
Bright eyes. Dirty hands, dirty face. A ragged shape, black. A shadow in the sodium light of the street lamp.
But it wasn’t new. It wasn’t a new feeling. It was déjà-vu. It was like they had always been there, watching me even in my cradle.
They didn’t come every night. Not even most nights. But often enough, when I waited for them, they would come.
Mostly I would fall asleep, curled on my left side. The curtains wide open, the blinds pulled up. I would try to stay awake, stare at the empty outline of the tree, until my eyes burned and swam and my thoughts turned strange, blurring into a dream.
Most nights, that was it. I would wake in the morning, on my back, on my stomach, or on my right side, the tree still empty. Mouth dry, curtains still open, sunlight on my face.
Naked in winter. Clothed in summer. The tree was my opposite.
But some nights ... some nights, I would wake in the dark and they were there. My breath would catch in my throat. My heart beat fast in my chest. I dared not move
We watched one another.
...
I ... I don’t remember falling asleep. I never did. But I must have done, every time. Because I would wake up and the tree would be empty again.
...
PERSON A - lays down on the bed slowly, curled on their side and looks up at the tower.
SOUND - crows cawing.
PART TWO
VOICEOVER 2:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - stands up suddenly and takes on a different persona.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we should have known. Kids say all sorts of things, don’t they. Sometimes you listen and sometimes you don’t. You can’t take every little thing seriously or it would be the end of the world every week.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame us. To say we should have done something to stop her. People surprise you. They have lives of their own. Private thoughts and private things going on. Even people you think you know. Even people you see every day. Even your own kids.
They think things you didn’t think they could possibly think. Keep secrets.
She didn’t fit in. Not at home. Not at school. Nothing was ever right. Nothing was ever good enough. We tried our best with her, I promise you that. No one could have tried harder than we did. But there was always something wrong.
And now she’s gone. And, I say this carefully, knowing it won’t go further, because some people wouldn’t understand, but I’m relieved.
Course I miss her. But, well.
And no, we won’t be going around looking for her. She knows where we are if she needs us.
PERSON A - sits back down on the bed, hands clasped between their knees.
SOUND - crows cawing.
PART THREE
VOICEOVER 3:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - remains seated on the bed.
I first heard the story on TV. It was a long time ago so the details are already hazy, but I’ll tell you what I can. I was a child. It was on daytime television. An interview with an actress. I can’t remember which actress now, but it was a TV actress. Everyone would have known her name at the time. I can’t even remember her face.
There was an actress called Rula Lenska. She was British Polish. It definitely wasn’t her who was being interviewed, but she’s become a kind of stand in in my mind. Maybe just because she’s from the right era and she’s Polish. I mean, I even know she doesn’t look right. Rula had this bright red hair and a kind of impressive, hard beauty. This actress was different. Softer.
Anyway.
She was talking about a play she wanted to make. I think it was just a supplementary question, really. Not the main meat of the interview. I think the interview was really about a play, or a TV show, that she was already in.
The Crowboy, she said it was a Polish folktale about a child from a village who wasn’t a girl or boy. The child was driven out and lived in a tree at the edge of the village and they watched the villages coming and going. All the villagers pretended they couldn’t see the child, but some of them must have left food for it.
I don’t know anymore how much of the story is what she said in the interview and how much I thought about it. I imagined the Crowboy up in that tree, dressed in rags.
Why were they called a Crow boy when she said they weren’t a boy or a girl? And why crow? Just because they lived in a tree and watched?
I thought about that story a lot.
I tried to write a book about it once, but never finished. In the book there was another character. A girl from the village who watched the Crowboy from her window in her house at the edge of the village every night before she went to sleep. I guess the Crowboy could have been older by then, still small, maybe, but weathered from the wind and the rain. I imagined there was a fair in the town where the Crowboy came down from the tree to find the girl. No one knew it was them because everyone was in fancy dress. And then they ran away together somewhere.
When the internet came around, I searched for the story of the Crowboy online. I couldn’t ever find anything. Not even now, when the internet knows everything.
I suppose it’s possible that the folk story was forgotten. It’s also possible that the actress invented it.
PERSON A - turns and rolls onto their side on the bed.
SOUND - crows cawing
PART FOUR
VOICEOVER 4:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - stands, turns, stares at the tower.
I left bread and sometimes sweets. Not every day, but often enough. At the bottom of the tree. We didn’t have much extra but we had enough. My mum did it too. She knew I knew but we never talked about it. I caught mum once, in the kitchen. She was serving out an extra, half-size portion of dinner into a little plastic cat bowl. She said she’d made too much so she was saving it for later, but then when I asked her about it again, she pretended not to know what I was talking about and looked at me long and hard. I knew not to ask her again.
Maybe other people did the same. They must have. The scraps we put out can’t have been enough. Maybe it came down from the tree during the night and foraged or found stuff in the trash. Maybe it hunted.
Perhaps people left clothes for it, too. Shoes, maybe. Or blankets. I don’t think any of the men would have left it stuff, though. Not even scraps. It was them who told us what we could see and not see, I think. Though perhaps the women were the ones who decided what we could talk about and not talk about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all the women were soft and gentle and all the men hard and cold. But you know what it’s like. Except Paul. Maybe Paul gave it food too. Paul was different.
Where did it go when it wasn’t in the tree? Who was it? Why didn’t it just leave?
There’s so much about it that I think about now and I don’t understand. When you are a child you just accept things. The Crowboy lives in a tree at the edge of the town. No one looks at them and no one talks about them. I just accepted that. I asked questions, like all kids do. But not the right ones.
PERSON A - stays where they are watching the tower.
SOUND - crows cawing, but more this time
PART FIVE
VOICEOVER 5:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns, faces the audience.
I know it wasn’t good enough. But it was something. It was something, and for a while it looked as though there wasn’t going to be anything at all I could do. But we made a bargain.
Perhaps it was selfish, to want to keep them close. Perhaps it would have been better if I had just let them go completely. But ... at least like this, I could still see them even if we couldn’t talk.
At least it was something.
But now, now, this has happened. And it’s all wrong. It’s worse than ever before.
PERSON A - puts their hands over their eyes
SOUND - crows cawing raucously
PART SIX
VOICEOVER 6:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns, faces the audience.
I ... I knew something was going to happen. Before. When we were all getting ready, I just had this feeling in my stomach.
I kind of suddenly felt as though I was going through the motions, you know? It was as though, one minute I was with my friends, laughing and joking, getting ready for the big party. And then the next, I was on the outside, watching. As though the volume has been turned down and I can’t quite catch my breath. Or like everything is in slow motion.
Palms sweaty. I lose the thread of the conversation. Everyone else is laughing but I don’t know what the joke is anymore.
Usually, that kind of feeling doesn’t last long. Know what I mean? It’s there, but then gone before you know it, or not even there long enough for anyone to notice. Or if they do notice, you can just laugh it off, because the feeling is retreating already.
‘Oh, you look like a ghost,’ they say.
‘Someone must have walked over my grave.’ That’s what you’re supposed to reply. Laugh it off.
But this feeling, it stayed with me all evening. I danced, but I felt like I was somewhere else. When my boyfriend kissed me, I pushed him away. It felt wrong. I locked myself in the toilet and just sat there, head in my hands, until someone banged on the door and asked if I was OK.
I was relieved when the night was over. Dad was early to come and pick me up and I went and got in the car as soon as I saw him. He looked worried but he didn’t ask. He’d tell my mum and then she’d come and ask me. That’s how it worked.
‘Your dad was worried about you last night. Said you were a bit quiet. Is everything OK with Daren, love?’
That’s what she would say.
I fell asleep easily, which was a surprise — no dreams — and when I woke up the feeling had finally lifted. I felt elated. I couldn’t even remember what the feeling had been like.
But when I ran downstairs, my mum was sitting at the kitchen table, crying. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened for a long time, and when she did she pulled me into her arms.
I walked past the tree at the edge of town later that day. I couldn’t help it. I had to see. There were other people there already when I got there. The tree was empty, of course, and we just looked up at it. They felled it the same week. Chopped it up for firewood.
PERSON A - puts their hands over their eyes
SOUND - crows cawing raucously
PART SEVEN
VOICEOVER 7:
A person describes their feeling about crows. The voiceover quality is scratchy as though it has been recorded on a phone or an old recording device.
SOUND - crows cawing
PERSON A - turns back to the tower.
Crows gather.
They gather to forage and feed. To fight and to play. To roost and to sleep.
When I first saw the crowboy, I think I knew they would gather me to them ... I think I knew they were waiting and I was waiting too.
We were both waiting.
PERSON A - changes into the crow costume and slowly climbs the tower. When they are on the top of the tower, they perform a movement sequence.
SOUND - increasing sound of crows cawing. Cuts to silence.