The stage play featured four cats in a character’s back story. Matthew, Mark and Luke were all ginger toms but John was a black and white. John belonged to Sylvia, a 55 year old, virgin, office worker; Matthew, Mark and Luke belonged to Sylvia’s mother, an evil paraplegic. All lived in the same house.
Matthew, Mark and Luke bully John
Because the Gingers were out to get John, John was kept in the conservatory but, even secured in there, he was still victim to their intimidation. In one scene Sylvia described how the Gingers would position themselves to the south, east and west of the glass construction and stare in at poor John relentlessly. This had a terrible effect on John who was quite nervous anyway. If Sylvia didn’t discover John’s plight and dash out with a ready loaded and pumped up super-soaker water gun, yelling like a commando, and squirt them, John would crap in her plant-pots.
Matthew, Mark and Luke bully Sylvia
Despite Sylvia’s bravado with the super-soaker, Matthew, Mark and Luke weren’t afraid of her. In fact they conspired to swipe her head through the balustrades and to trip her when she carried a tray or use the stairs. They were always hatching plots and would strategically position themselves to catch Sylvia at her most vulnerable. Once, before ending a fall from top to bottom of the stairs, she dashed her head on her mother’s Stanner Stairlift, lost consciousness and lay for a considerable time at the foot of the stairs. She recovered to find Matthew, the biggest of the three gingers, lying on her head, attempting to smother her.
Sylvia and Sylvia’s Mother – The Plot
Although Sylvia cared for her mother, were it not for Mommy being confined to a wheelchair, Mommy undoubtedly would have assisted Matthew, Mark and Luke in the murder of John. Sadly, she was wrongly convinced that Sylvia only stayed to ensure her inheritance. Her daily aim was the upset and humiliation of her ridiculously obedient, devoted daughter.
Sylvia’s first job upon coming home from work was to clean up the Ginger’s cat mess. The location of this, mostly on the patio but more often than not outside the door to the conservatory too, was highlighted with flags. (Sylvia made the flags, according to her Mother’s instructions, from cocktail sticks, cellotape and cut-out triangular pieces of pilfered Touche & Company’s headed note paper). During the course of the day Sylvia’s Mother took pleasure in piercing the cat turds with the miniature flags, or propping them alongside stools of less solid formation as marks for Sylvia to attend to when she came home from work.
Sylvia’s Unrequited Love
Sylvia had worked at Touche & Company for thirty-five years and over that time had developed an unrequited and slightly unhealthy fondness for young Mr Touche. Matters were made worse, indirectly, by John her cat. Sylvia had noticed that when John was allowed to relax and feel safe, that he’d purr, look at her and do something she called “closey eye”, a slow and repeated blink, which she demonstrates when recounting her sad love story. Over the last month Sylvia had been using the said “closey eye” technique on young Mr Touche. It hadn’t worked and led, that day, to Sylvia being made to clear her desk and being escorted off the premises by Security.
The Play’s Finale
In the final scene the proceedings are interrupted when Sylvia is arrested, by two police officers, for matricide. The Ginger Cats, we discover, had been found in a cupboard with the body of Sylvia’s mother wrapped like a mummy in Touche & Company’s headed note paper.
The Play’s Context and History
Individual Portions: A Play in Three Portions. A comedy stage play in real time. ACTS I, II and III (starter, main and pudding) featured 13 characters around a dinner table, all were members of a Singles’ Gourmet Dinner Club. It was the first theatre offering at the Old Joint Stock a pub in Birmingham, England. That was in 2000. In October 2006 the pub opened its own dedicated theatre space – hopefully one day the play will be restaged there in the now comfortable and excellent pub theatre. The play was written by Claire Bennett, Katy Coxall and Charmaine Russell – Sylvia, Sylvia’s Mother, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the inventions of Katy Coxall.