AQA GCSE Drama Student Book: Revised Edition

SET PLAY 3: Things I Know to be True by Andrew Bovell 3 As Autumn Turns Bob is tending the garden while Rosie and Fran work in the kitchen. Fran encourages Rosie to get a job and suggests nursing. Fran is worried that Bob seems forgetful. She would like to take him on a trip and admits she has a secret stash of money. Fran feels that Bob’s world and sense of self-worth have shrunk since he was made redundant. Ben arrives to drop o his laundry. Bob disapproves of Ben’s ashy new car. Bob and Ben argue and Ben leaves. Fran tells Bob that he should notice that Ben is doing well for himself. Bob says that by Ben’s age he had children and a mortgage. Rosie says that she is planning to move out. In a letter from Pip to Fran, Pip re ects on mother-and-daughter relationships and confesses that she has gone to Vancouver to be with the married man she is having an a air with. When Bob asks her what Pip says, Fran replies, ‘It’s cold in Vancouver.’ Winter Fran is smoking in the garden. Mark remembers that when he was younger, he would sit up in a tree and observe his family. e garden was where his mother would sneak a cigarette, usually when she was trying to solve one of the children’s problems. Fran tells Bob that Mark is coming over. She wonders if Mark is gay. Later that night, Mark arrives, soaked by a rainstorm. Fran and Bob fuss over him. Bob jokes that the only thing that would shock them would be if Mark said he had ‘decided to become a woman’. In the silence, they realise that a truth has been revealed. Mark is beginning the process of living as a woman. Bob retreats to the garden and Fran says they hadn’t seen this coming. Mark says he is moving to Sydney as there is ‘no place for me here’. Fran angrily says she wishes she had never had children. Bob tells Mark that he is ‘a beautiful man’ and that he shouldn’t ‘mess’ with that. Mark says he loves them, but that is too much to ask. Fran tells him to become the person that he needs to be, but she doesn’t want to see it, as she will mourn the son she has lost. Interval As Winter Turns Mark packs as they discuss his move to Sydney where his new name will be Mia. Mark describes the trip to the airport with Rosie and Bob. When they part, his father weeps. Mark says that his father’s grief ‘is a price I am prepared to pay’ and that, by the time he lands in Sydney, he will be a new person. Spring Bob and Fran are dancing while their children watch. Ben describes how, in the daily chaos of their busy household, when a favourite song came on the radio, he would grab Fran to dance. Bob breaks away from the dancing and wonders if life has passed him by. Fran suggests they go away together and that they need to remember ‘who we are’. 73 SECTION B STUDY OF A SET PLAY