Was He Anyone?

About the production

Written by: N. F. Simpson

Directed by: Marieva Coughlan

This play centres on a protagonist we never see yet we hear his cry for help. He is stranded in the sea, not too far from a cruise ship where passengers seemed rather put off by his cries for help.

Events on stage alternate between the deck of the cruise ship, where a party of middle class cruisers projecting an air of upper middle class self-importance is annoyed by the nuisance created by the call for help lest it touches their conscience. They wish the irritating calls for help are silenced so as not to upset their relaxation.

The drowning man’s wife desperately tries to find a way to rescue her husband. As it so happened it is a National Help You Out Year Week and members are at hand to advise. Unfortunately the organization is as confused and incompetent as its meaningless title.

The wife is sucked into commercialisation of the potential rescue. Inadvertently she is a willing party to the amusingly grotesque reality of permitting an individual to drown initially due to total incompetence which later is translated to a cynical exercise in manipulation of media interest.

The rescue operation, or the lack of it, introduces absurdity in a form of what is supplied to the drowning character and the media interest in him so long as he is kept afloat or in a close-to-drowning state as practically possible. A grand piano is sent out to him and we later hear him playing a piano concerto accompanied by a full orchestra.