Pitch (2006)
Jack and Andrew are participants in a Back to Work scheme, and ground keepers at a soon to be disused sports ground. Neither Andrew, who has a mild disability, nor Jack, who does not have any greater claim than muscle in this world, plan to walk away from this job quietly. Their unseen boss administers absolute instructions to ensure that the pitch is fit for an approaching match between two local schools, and they prepare the pitch with this purpose in mind – that is, until the prospect of romance comes between the two.
The play is a picture of society in which individuals have shrunken from active subjects to mere observers of their own lives. Oppression has become anonymous and in theory not targeted towards anyone or anything. The characters of the play have to invent their own lives, their hopes, fears, crimes, and even their exploitation. The lives of Andrew and Jack have shrivelled into a verbal game – into a kind of virtual reality, which has no correspondence with authentic experience.
2 M. Available: FIN, ENG, GER
Excerpt
ACT ONE
1.
ANDREW
Today is Wednesday.
JACK
I know
ANDREW
Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow Thursday then it’s Friday, and then the weekend. Ye can tell when it’s Friday. There’s a kind of quiver in the breeze, that’s Friday for ye, and then it’s the weekend. People are more different than usual on a Friday, like on a Tuesday when everyone just is. Tuesdays are hard to beat, ye can ‘ardly top a Tuesday. But on a Friday – stop the lights! it’s the weekend. Ye could wake up from a coma, walk out a hospital, and in a blink know what day it was. Laugh in thunder, with a sight like that it’s certainly a Friday. And Sunday is another thing. Things have a way of repeating themselves on a Sunday, must do this and ‘ave to do that, what’s my purpose in life and all the rest of that shite.
JACK
Enough, Andrew!
ANDREW
No one plays cricket anymore, they play football.
JACK
School kids play cricket.
ANDREW
Why?
JACK
They just do.
ANDREW
What for?
JACK
The teachers make them.
(...)
[Translated from the Finnish by David Robertson.]
Press clips
“"The Field is an enclosed reality where time stops and the outside world is beyond reach. Andrew and Jack draw the chalk line, dream big and reveal their deepest emotions on the side.
The text is a bouncing stream of consciousness; subjects change without transitions as Andrew and Jack challenge each other to a verbal game.”"
“A pitch-black comedy”: Frida Gustafsson, Turun Sanomat 18 June 2011
"“In the microcosm of a sports field, life is reduced to power struggles of lines, ego tripping to holding the measure and relationships to fantasies.”
“The Field is also a no-man’s land where you incessantly wait for Godot, for something to change, to get better.”"
“Life is a waiting room at the side of a sports field”: Soila Lehtonen, Aamulehti 2 March 2012
"“Andrew dreams of the field they are looking after growing into a stadium. Jack is a realist and not as enthusiastic but, on the other hand, in Jack’s dreams, the work makes him and them grow into heroes of the good old days.”"
“A hero floats across the line”: Matti Linnavuori, Satakunnan kansa 3 March 2012
"”Texten är både tragikomiskt galghumoristisk, snärtigt ironisk och lätt melodramatisk [...].”"
”Upp ur djupen”: Elisabeth Nordgren, Hufvudstadsbladet 2.3.2012
