Candide

Mark Ravenhill’s previous work includes A Life of Galileo;

Ten Plagues; Ghost Story; Nation; The Experiment; Over There;
A Life in Three Acts (co-written with Bette Bourne); Shoot/
Get Treasure/Repeat; Ripper; pool (no water); Dick Whittington
and His Cat; Citizenship; The Cut; Product; Education; Moscow;
Totally Over You; Mother Clap’s Molly House; North Greenwich;
Some Explicit Polaroids; Handbag; Sleeping Around; Faust is
Dead; and Shopping and F***ing.

Candide.indd 1 20/08/2013 13:22

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 Mark Ravenhill

Candide
Inspired by Voltaire

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

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 Bloomsbury Methuen Drama
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2013
© Mark Ravenhill 2013

Mark Ravenhill has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization
acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this
publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application
for performance, etc. should be made before rehearsals to Casarotto Ramsay
and Associates, Waverley House, 7–12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ,
[email protected]. No performance may be given unless a licence
has been obtained.

No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the work are hereby

granted and performance rights for any performance/presentation
whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: PB: 978-1-4725-3294-7

ePub: 978-1-4725-2235-1
ePDF: 978-1-4725-2681-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Mark Heslington Ltd, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

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 ABOUT THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in Stratford-upon-Avon
in 1879. Since then the plays of Shakespeare have been performed
here, alongside the work of his contemporaries and of modern
playwrights. In 1960 the Royal Shakespeare Company was formed,
gaining its Royal Charter in 1961.
The founding Artistic Director, Peter Hall, created an ensemble
theatre company of young actors and writers. The Company was
led by Hall, Peter Brook and Michel Saint-Denis. The founding
principles were threefold: the Company would embrace the freedom
and power of Shakespeare’s work, train and develop young actors
and directors and, crucially, experiment in new ways of making
theatre. There was a new spirit amongst this post-war generation
and they intended to open up Shakespeare’s plays as never before.
The impact of Peter Hall’s vision cannot be underplayed. In 1955 he
premiered Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in London, and the
result was like opening a window during a storm. The tumult of new
ideas emerging across Europe in art, theatre and literature came
flooding into British theatre. Hall channelled this new excitement into
the setting up of the Company in Stratford. Exciting breakthroughs
took place in the rehearsal room and the studio day after day. The
RSC became known for exhilarating performances of Shakespeare
alongside new masterpieces such as The Homecoming and Old
Times by Harold Pinter. It was a combination that thrilled audiences.
Peter Hall’s rigour on classical text became legendary, but what
is little known is that he applied everything he learned working on
Beckett, and later on Harold Pinter, to his work on Shakespeare, and
likewise he applied everything he learned from Shakespeare onto
modern texts. This close and exacting relationship between writers
from different eras became the fuel which powered the creativity of
the RSC.

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 The search for new forms of writing and directing was led by
Peter Brook. He pushed writers to experiment. “Just as Picasso
set out to capture a larger slice of the truth by painting a face with
several eyes and noses, Shakespeare, knowing that man is living
his everyday life and at the same time is living intensely in the
invisible world of his thoughts and feelings, developed a method
through which we can see at one and the same time the look on a
man’s face and the vibrations of his brain.”
In our fifty years of producing new plays, we have sought out some
of the most exciting writers of their generation. These have included:
Edward Albee, Howard Barker, Edward Bond, Howard Brenton,
Marina Carr, Caryl Churchill, Martin Crimp, David Edgar, Helen
Edmundson, James Fenton, Georgia Fitch, David Greig, Dennis Kelly,
Tarell Alvin McCraney, Martin McDonagh, Frank McGuinness, Rona
Munro, Anthony Neilson, Harold Pinter, Phil Porter, Mike Poulton,
Mark Ravenhill, Adriano Shaplin, Tom Stoppard, debbie tucker green
and Roy Williams.
The Company today is led by Gregory Doran, whose recent
appointment represents a long-term commitment to the disciplines
and craftsmanship required to put on the plays of Shakespeare.
He, along with Executive Director, Catherine Mallyon, and his
Deputy Artistic Director, Erica Whyman, will take forward a belief
in celebrating both Shakespeare’s work and the work of his
contemporaries, as well as inviting some of the most exciting
theatre-makers of today to work with the Company on new plays.

The RSC Ensemble is generously supported by THE GATSBY CHARITABLE

FOUNDATION and THE KOVNER FOUNDATION.
The RSC is grateful for the significant support of its principal funder,
Arts Council England, without which our work would not be possible.
Around 50 per cent of the RSC’s income is self-generated from Box Office sales,
sponsorship, donations, enterprise and partnerships with other organisations.

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 NEW WORK AT THE RSC
We are a contemporary theatre company built on classical rigour.
Through an extensive programme of research and development,
we resource writers, directors and actors to explore and develop
new ideas for our stages, and as part of this we commission
playwrights to engage with the muscularity and ambition of the
classics and to set Shakespeare’s world in the context of our
own. In 2015 we will reopen The Other Place, our studio theatre
in Stratford-upon-Avon, which will be a creative home for new
work and experimentation. Leading up to that reopening we will
continue to find spaces and opportunities to offer our audiences
contemporary voices alongside our classical repertoire.
We invite writers to spend time with us in our rehearsal rooms,
with our actors and practitioners. Alongside developing their own
plays for our stages, we invite them to contribute dramaturgically
to both our main stage Shakespeare productions and our work
for young people. We believe that engaging with living writers and
other contemporary theatre makers helps to establish a creative
culture within the Company which both inspires new work and
creates an ever more urgent sense of enquiry into the classics.
Shakespeare was a great innovator and breaker of rules, as well as
a bold commentator on the times in which he lived. It is his spirit of
‘Radical Mischief’ which informs new work at the RSC.
Erica Whyman, Deputy Artistic Director, heads up this strand of
the Company’s work, Pippa Hill is our Literary Manager and
Mark Ravenhill is our Playwright in Residence.

The RSC British Playwright in Residence is generously supported by the Columbia

Foundation Fund of The Capital Community Foundation.
The RSC Literary Department is generously supported by THE DRUE HEINZ TRUST.
CROSS is the exclusive pen partner of the RSC in support of New Work.

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 This production of Candide was first performed by the Royal
Shakespeare Company in the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon,
on 29 August 2013. The cast was as follows:

ABARIAN SOLDIER/
EMMA/NURSE Ellie Beaven
COUNTESS/HANNAH Ishia Bennison
CUNEGONDE Susan Engel
PLAYWRIGHT/SCREENWRITER Richard Goulding
BULGARIAN SOLDIER/
JACQUES/VOLTAIRE Kevin Harvey
BULGARIAN OFFICER/TIM John Hopkins
PROLOGUE/ABARIAN SOLDIER/
BEN/TETUAN Harry McEntire
CANDIDE Matthew Needham
BULGARIAN SERGEANT/ADAM Ciarán Owens
PANGLOSS/
ABARIAN SOLDIER/TED Ian Redford
CUNEGONDE/ABARIAN SOLDIER/
ROSA/PADRES Rose Reynolds
BARON/ABARIAN SOLDIER/
MIKE/CACOMBO Steffan Rhodri
BULGARIAN SOLDIER/
SOPHIE/TUCAMON Sarah Ridgeway
BARONESS/
BULGARIAN SOLDIER/SARAH Katy Stephens
BULGARIAN SOLDIER/
EVA/MARTINA Badria Timimi
CANDIDE (THE ACTOR)/
OREILLON Dwane Walcott

All other parts played by members of the Company.

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 Directed by Lyndsey Turner
Designed by Soutra Gilmour
Lighting Designed by Tim Lutkin
Music by Michael Bruce
Sound by Christopher Shutt
Choreography by Scott Ambler
Fights by Bret Yount
Company Text and Voice Work by Stephen Kemble
Assistant Director Mel Hillyard
Music Director John Woolf
Casting by Hannah Miller CDG
Literary Manager Pippa Hill
Production Manager Rebecca Watts
Costume Supervisor Chris Cahill
Company Manager Michael Dembowicz
Stage Manager Pip Horobin
Deputy Stage Manager Gabrielle Sanders
Assistant Stage Manager Christie Gerrard

MUSICIANS
Violin Ivor McGregor
Cello Ben Stevens
Bass Mat Heighway
Guitars Tom Durham
Trumpet Andrew Stone-Fewings
Percussion James Jones
Keyboards John Woolf

This text may differ slightly from the play as performed.

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 JOIN US
Join us from £18 a year.
Join today and make a difference
The Royal Shakespeare Company is an ensemble. We perform all
year round in our Stratford-upon-Avon home, as well as having
regular seasons in London, and touring extensively within the UK
and overseas for international residencies.
With a range of options from £18 to £10,000 per year, there are
many ways to engage with the RSC.
Choose a level that suits you and enjoy a closer connection with us
whilst also supporting our work on stage.
Find us online
Sign up for regular email updates at www.rsc.org.uk/signup
Join today
Annual RSC Full Membership costs just £40 (or £18 for Associate
Membership) and provides you with regular updates on RSC news,
advance information and priority booking.
Support us
A charitable donation from £100 a year can offer you the benefits
of membership, whilst also allowing you the opportunity to deepen
your relationship with the Company through special events,
backstage tours and exclusive ticket booking services.
The options include Shakespeare’s Circle (from £100), Patrons’
Circle (Silver: £1,000, Gold: £5,000) and Artists’ Circle (£10,000).
For more information visit www.rsc.org.uk/supportus or call the
RSC Membership Office on 01789 403 440.

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 THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Patron
Her Majesty The Queen
President
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
Chairman
Nigel Hugill
Deputy Chairman
Lady Sainsbury of Turville CBE
Artistic Director
Gregory Doran
Executive Director
Catherine Mallyon
Board
Sir William Atkinson
Damon Buffini
David Burbidge OBE
Miranda Curtis
Gregory Doran (Artistic Director)
Mark Foster
Gilla Harris
John Hornby
Nigel Hugill
Catherine Mallyon (Executive Director)
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
Paul Morrell OBE
Lady Sainsbury of Turville CBE
James Shapiro
David Tennant

The RSC was established in 1961. It is incorporated under Royal Charter

and is a registered charity, number 212481.

Candide.indd 11 20/08/2013 13:22

 Contents

Characters 2
One 3
Two 26
Three 39
Four 53

Five 67

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 Candide

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 Characters
Countess
Playwright
Candide
PROLOGUE
CANDIDE
PANGLOSS
CUNEGONDE
BARON
BARONESS
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT
ABARIAN SOLDIER
JACQUES
SAILOR
WOMAN
ROSA
Sophie
Sarah
Ted
Ben
Adam
Mike
Emma
Eva
Voltaire
Tim
Hannah
Screenwriter
Tetuan
Tucamon
Cacombo
Martina
Oreillon
Padres
Nurse
Pangloss
Cunegonde
Soldiers, inhabitants of El Dorado, wealthy visitors to the
Pangloss Institute, etc.
Note: names of all the characters in the play within the play are shown in upper case.

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 One
Enter the Countess and Playwright.
Countess  You’re sure Candide can be revived?
Playwright  I believe he can, Countess.
Countess  He must.
When he first arrived in Venice
And I found him – beautiful boy – lost outside my palace
Candide was weary, melancholy.
But I hoped with new clothes, fine food
Jewels, music and my own beauty
He would revive
And return the passion that I felt for him.
But the weeks have passed
And despite my enticements he falls deeper and deeper
Into lethargy.
He sleeps night and day
Mumbling in his troubled dreams a name – whose?
I fear if he’s not soon revived
Candide will waste to death.
Playwright  I took – (a small and I hope forgivable act of
  theft) –
Candide’s journal from beside his bed
As he slept. Here it is.
It seems that Candide was raised with a philosophy called
Optimism
The belief that everything is for the best.
I have used this to write a biographical play
Which will present all Candide’s wanderings and troubles
And will conclude with a scene which proves
That here in your palace, in your arms,
Candide is in the best of all possible worlds.
Countess  Excellent invention. He comes.
Enter Candide.

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 4  Candide

Candide  What? Is it night or day?

I dream. And now a dream so terrible
I wake and rise shouting at the air.
I thought I saw – I saw –
But the image fades
And I remember nothing.
Countess  Candide
I have a surprise for you.
Candide  What? Another madrigal? More finery to dress
  me in?
Countess, I am grateful for your gifts but they –
Countess  A play written especially for you.
Candide  A play? I never saw a play before.
Countess  Then come – sit and watch one now. Send in the
 players.
PROLOGUE appears.
PROLOGUE  Each man has just one mission:
To better know himself.
So sit and listen to:
‘Candide – Life of a Young Optimist.’
Candide  What? Will they play my life?
Countess  They will.
Enter CANDIDE.
Candide  Who is this person enters here?
Playwright  He plays you Candide.
Candide  Me? Ah. Me? Well. I like him. Yes. Bravo
 Candide!
Countess (aside)  See how he cheers already. The healing
 begins.
Enter PANGLOSS.
PANGLOSS  Candide: Time for your lesson.

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 One  5

Candide  And this is Pangloss. Hello old friend. (Hugs him.)

PANGLOSS  Sir, I must play the scene –
Countess  Candide we can clasp the players once they’ve
 played.
Best now to sit and watch.
(Oh the colour in his face
Maybe tonight he’ll –
But my body races ahead.)
PANGLOSS  Optimism: the belief that this is the optimal
 existence.
Firstly, Candide, understand there is a great Maker
Supreme architect
Who considered every possible universe before finally
Resolving that this was the best of all possible worlds,
In which his greatest creation – Man – should live.
Do you grasp the general principle Candide?
CANDIDE  Not exactly.
PANGLOSS  Then allow me to give some
Illustrations.
First – here, upon my face,
What do you see?
CANDIDE  A nose.
PANGLOSS  And why did the Maker give me a nose?
CANDIDE  I –
PANGLOSS  So that it might carry spectacles. You see how
  perfect is His design?
Everything connected.
Legs were made so they could bear breeches, cows so they
  could offer up their hides as leather for our shoes –
CANDIDE  And stones were made so we could build
 castles.
And the best castle of all is the one in which we’re living
Here in the best kingdom of Westphalia

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 6  Candide

With Monsieur the Baron von ­Thunder-­Ten-­Tronckh –

  the best guardian I could possibly have
And his best possible wife
And their best possible daughter Cunegonde.
Candide  Cunegonde? Will she come upon the stage?
Playwright  She’s ready for her entrance now.
PANGLOSS  Candide:
  You’re an optimist.
Both (sing)  If only man could see
 With total rationality
Trust our Maker’s grand design
Everything will turn out fine
For this is the best
The best of all possible worlds.
PANGLOSS  Lesson finished for today.
Clear your books away.
Exit PANGLOSS. CANDIDE clears his books. Enter
CUNEGONDE.
Countess  Candide! Why do you start from your chair?
Candide  Cunegonde – standing there.
I must speak with her.
Cunegonde so many years apart and yet still you –
CUNEGONDE  Sir, I am an actress. Painted. Don’t you
  understand the laws of the drama?
Candide  But still ‘Actress’ so like Cunegonde
  If I might kiss you –
CUNEGONDE  Oh sir. (Goes to kiss him.)
Countess  Sit Candide.
You must not kiss an actress. A creature of poverty, easy
  with her body, probably infected.
Candide  But so like my Cunegonde.

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 One  7

Countess  (Is the name he utters in his dreams?

Has Cunegonde already claimed his heart?)
Candide  Forgive me. The laws of the drama are new to me
  but I’m beginning to understand.
CUNEGONDE  Candide, we’ve known each other since we
  were children
But lately
Our bodies have changed.
Yesterday, while in the castle grounds
My attention was drawn by a cry.
It was Doctor Pangloss with the chambermaid Paquette.
They were – Pangloss explained –
Exploring the laws of physics.
Paquette was performing an action
So that he might experience a reaction.
A study
Which I thought you and I might also conduct.
First an action. I drop my handkerchief – so
And now I ask you ‘Pick it up’.
CANDIDE moves to pick up the handkerchief but CUNEGONDE
steps so that her skirts cover it up.
CANDIDE  Oh.
CUNEGONDE  An observation?
CANDIDE  I can’t pick up the handkerchief.
CUNEGONDE  No?
The scientist must pursue his researches
However hard his task.
CANDIDE  I could go –
CUNEGONDE  Yes?
CANDIDE goes under the skirt.
CUNEGONDE  An excellent reaction. Candide:
Wanting to explore what would happen in certain
  controlled conditions
I’ve removed my undergarments.

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 8  Candide

Countess  Is this as it really happened? This Cunegonde’s a

  somewhat –
Candide  Speak no ill of her. I forbid it.
CUNEGONDE  That’s it Candide. Every point mass
attracts every other point mass by a force pointing along the
line intersecting both points and the force is proportional to
the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between them.
She has an orgasm.
Candide  Well played Candide! Well played Cunegonde!
Countess  (And now I know: it is ‘Cunegonde’ he mutters
  in his dreams. He has a lover.)
Enter BARON and BARONESS.
BARONESS  What is the meaning of this outrage?
BARON  Sir, some eighteen years ago
(Although I was under no obligation)
I took you as my ward.
Seeing that your nature was all innocence
I christened you ‘Candide’.
You have enjoyed the best of lives.
But you are – I see –
An animal.
CUNEGONDE  Candide was conducting – no outrage – a
  scientific experiment.
BARONESS  ‘Science’. Foolish girl.
BARON  I take the only course of action that I can:
You are banished from my castle.
You will never see Cunegonde again.
Candide  No!
CANDIDE  Cunegonde:
No other
Cluster of atoms, viz. my person

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 One  9

Is meant to be with such another cluster of atoms, viz.

  your person.
That is I believe an unchanging natural law.
Candide  Wait for me Cunegonde.
CANDIDE  We’ll be reunited.
Candide  For this is the best of all possible worlds.
CANDIDE (at the same time as the above)  For this is the best
  of all possible worlds.
Countess  Is not his longing for Cunegonde then the cause
 of his melancholy? And won’t this play remind him that
she waits?
Playwright  Wait for him? Impossible. For very soon
 Cunegonde is – but I will not spoil the story.
CANDIDE  Baron, Baroness, if I might be allowed a last
  kiss from –?
BARON  What sir?
BARONESS  How sir?
Both  No sir.
Exit BARON, BARONESS and CUNEGONDE.
Candide  My own life to the letter. How could you know
  such things?
Playwright  The artist has a particular capacity for
  sympathetic imagination.
Candide  The reminder is too painful. I’ll return to sleep.
Playwright  The play, sir, like the world has a grand design
  and will show – I promise you – that all is for the best.
CANDIDE collapses exhausted. Enter BULGARIAN
RECRUITING OFFICER following BULGARIAN
RECRUITING SERGEANT.

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 10  Candide

Candide  I remember these men. Villains.

BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  See? Just as I
  told you, sleeping where I first spotted him – young, six
  feet tall,
Limbs intact, no sign of anything venereal,
His own teeth.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  A rare
  commodity after so many years of war.
We’ll recruit him and have him in uniform before
Tomorrow’s charge. Wake him.
I’ll be the good man, you the tough.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT blows his trumpet
and wakes CANDIDE.
CANDIDE  Who are you? I’ve seen no other men but those
  who live in the Baron’s estate in Westphalia.
Candide  This Candide’s a fool.
Playwright  But are these not your thoughts, words, deeds?
Candide  Still – a fool. He’ll allow himself to be pressed into
  the army. Watch.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  We’re new
  friends. A sip of schnapps?
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT offers the drink.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  Very
  reasonable price:
Three ecus.
CANDIDE  Oh
I thought you were offering – Then I must decline. I have
  no coin.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  I see that you
  are a man of nobility –
CANDIDE  Candide.

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 One  11

BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  Candide. So

  here. I’ll give you an ecu.
And I’ll ask you a question.
Do you love devotedly the Bulgarian King?
CANDIDE  I don’t know him. I know Mademoiselle
  Cunegonde who I truly –
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  Not know –
  infidel, revolutionary –
A man of such power and will
That he’ll lead his people through the fires of hell until
Until all Europe is in his grasp.
CANDIDE  You’ve convinced me:
The King of the Bulgars is truly the greatest of men.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  Hold this saber –
 so.
Take the schnapps, raise it high and
Repeat:
My life for the King of the Bulgars!
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  He hesitates!
  An insurrection!
CANDIDE  My life for the King of the Bulgars!
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  Louder.
CANDIDE  My life for the King of the Bulgars!
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  Yes!
He bangs loudly on a drum. Enter rapidly a large number of
BULGARIAN SOLDIERS, all very wounded.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  Men, stand tall
  and offer a salute
To our – thank Heaven – new recruit.
Send him Hercules strength, Mercury’s speed.
Three cheers for our hero soon to be: Candide!
BULGARIAN SOLDIERS  Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

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 12  Candide

Candide is rapidly dressed in a uniform and helmet, and a gun put

in his hand.
CANDIDE  Stop. A terrible mistake.
I’m a philosopher, lover not a soldier.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  It’s simple:
  follow orders and when you see the enemy, shoot.
CANDIDE  I’ll have no part in war.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  Are you aware,
 Candide,
Of a deserter’s punishment?
BULGARIAN RECRUITING SERGEANT  A choice:
Be whipped by every member of the regiment
(That’s two thousand men, times thirty-six lashes)
Or twelve lead bullets shot directly in your head.
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  My advice?
The first takes hours of bloody pain
The second –
Which will it be?
CANDIDE  It must be for the best that I swore the oath.
I’ll find – I’m sure – honour and lasting glory
In war.
 (Sings) If only man could see
With total rationality
Trust our Maker’s grand design
Everything will turn out fine
For this is the best
The best of all possible worlds.
I’ll fight.
BULGARIAN SOLDIERS  Cheer.
Countess  O brave Candide!
A bullet shot. The head of one of the soldiers is blown open.

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 One  13

BULGARIAN SOLDIER  A wolf is biting in my head.

I taste red milk,
Did night fall so fast? (Dies.)
BULGARIAN RECRUITING OFFICER  The enemy’s
  arrived! To arms!
The BULGARIAN SOLDIERS run off. The ABARIAN
SOLDIERS run on. They both run off and on. There are several
skirmishes between the soldiers. An ABARIAN SOLDIER
confronts CANDIDE.
ABARIAN SOLDIER  Are you a Bulgar?
(Aside.) Looks like a man. Bulgar uniform.
Bulgars, we are told, have more hair than apes,
Fangs like a dog, feed on baby’s blood, rape
Indiscriminately.
Was it lies?
CANDIDE  He hasn’t killed me yet. What’s this? A trick?
 Surprise
And destroy?
ABARIAN SOLDIER  Now I realize: War’s a lie.
I’ll embrace our brotherhood
Clasp him to my chest.
CANDIDE  Keep back. I’ve killed a thousand men.
ABARIAN SOLDIER  I greet you as a –
CANDIDE  Dog!
CANDIDE kills the ABARIAN SOLDIER, who falls at his feet.
ABARIAN SOLDIER  Dog is it? Dog?
ABARIAN SOLDIER barks and whines until he dies.
Candide  Oh Candide! How could you commit such an
 atrocity?

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 14  Candide

CANDIDE  This must all be part of my education.

But how
Is butchery part of the Grand Design?
The BULGARIAN SOLDIERS cross the stage.
BULGARIAN SOLDIERS  Give thanks to God
Our victory
Abaria defeated
The men we lost died not in vain
Home and health and wealth again
In all the world no land as civilised
Bulgaria! Bulgaria! Bulgaria!
The ABARIAN SOLDIERS cross the stage.
ABARIAN SOLDIERS  Give thanks to God
Our victory
Bulgaria defeated
The men we lost died not in vain
Home and health and wealth again
In all the world no land as civilised
Abaria! Abaria! Abaria!
CANDIDE  It must be necessary that I was driven away
  from Cunegonde,
Necessary to be pressed into the army, necessary to be
  threatened with whip and gun,
Necessary that I took a life.
How?
I’ve barely begun
To comprehend the Maker’s plan.
And now – days without food – I need to eat.
Enter JACQUES.
JACQUES  Friend –
Candide  Jacques. My dear old friend. To see you again –
But I’ve learnt. You are an imitation of the original.

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 One  15

CANDIDE  If I must I’ll kill again. Are you Abarian or

 Bulgar?
JACQUES  I am neither. What is Abarian? Bulgar?
I look at you and see
A creature with legs, no feathers and a soul –
In short, a Man.
I invite you to join my Anabaptist brotherhood.
We believe the greatest good
Is trade and industry.
I offer you an apprenticeship.
Holland, a business importing textiles from Baghdad.
CANDIDE  Pangloss was right. Everything is for the best.
  I happily accept.
JACQUES  All thought must turn to sadness
From idleness comes misery
The man who makes the chair on which he sits
The man who bakes the bread he eats
The man who earns his pay from labour
Knows happiness.
All nations come to battle
Each churchman lives on cruelty
The man who trades with his neighbour
The man who invests to increase his share
The man whose stocks yield a good return
Knows happiness.
CANDIDE is now a prosperous young merchant. He crosses the
stage but his path is blocked by a BEGGAR (PANGLOSS).
BEGGAR  See a man who life has tried harshly.
Spare a coin.
CANDIDE  Thanks to several years of industry
I am able to answer your plea.
CANDIDE gives BEGGAR a florin.

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 16  Candide

BEGGAR  Have you done so well Candide?

Proof. This is the best –
CANDIDE  You know my name? How?
BEGGAR  Am I so changed?
Beneath these sores that burn my skin,
Beneath this nose half lost, this almost toothless grin,
Beneath the eyes with sight so dim
That the world is all shadow now,
Is there not left enough of that cluster of atoms that we
  once called
‘Pangloss’?
CANDIDE  Pangloss. But how . . .?
PANGLOSS  Some time ago
I conducted a certain scientific experiment
With a chambermaid.
In Paquette’s embrace I found heaven and yet . . .
She was poor, her only inheritance she gave to me:
A progressive venereal disease.
In just a few months I’ll die – and horribly –
But I praise that syphilitic girl.
All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
How so? I have discovered a new philosophical principle:
An individual’s suffering is outnumbered by the general
 good.
As I will now demonstrate.
How did Europe come to have this sickness?
Christopher Columbus sailed the Atlantic
And brought from the Americas
Pox, yes.
But also tobacco,
Chocolate, cochineal
Thus vastly increasing our trading
Opportunities.
Ergo: outweighing the pain of venereal disease
Is the profit of globalised commodities.
CANDIDE  Pangloss. You’re right.

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 One  17

Both (sing)  If only man could see

 With total rationality
Trust our Maker’s grand design
Everything will turn out fine
For this is the best
The best of all possible worlds.
CANDIDE  One question.
I have to know the fate of Cunegonde.
PANGLOSS  Oh, Candide
Candide  And now a second time I’ll hear him say:
PANGLOSS  Cunegonde is dead.
CANDIDE  Ah!
Candide  Ah!
Countess  Oh!
PANGLOSS  The day that you were banished
The Bulgar hordes invaded Westphalia.
Monsieur the Baron Von Thunder ten Tronckh was
  chopped in pieces,
The Baroness’s skull smashed.
CANDIDE  And Cunegonde?
PANGLOSS  Was raped by the entire Bulgarian army,
Torn, broken
And with a sabre disembowelled.
Candide  How will I stand it?
Playwright  It happened and so it must be written.
CANDIDE (falling to his knees)  Pangloss I cannot see
That any Maker would plan
Such –

PANGLOSS  Remember: one person’s suffering is

outnumbered by the general –

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 18  Candide

Candide  Pangloss – you are a blind, cruel, chattering idiot.

Your Optimism –
PANGLOSS  My Optimism?
Sir. I am an actor.
I simply mouth the words which the play dictates.
Candide  And take no responsibility?
The drama is your fate?
Ignoble man.
Who’ll cry
Real tears when you’re lying in real blood?
Playwright  Sir
These actors are shadows who imitate
Your experience –
The things you saw yourself and know are true.
Will you attack this man for mere repetition?
Candide  To live it all again you’ll drive me mad.
O Cunegonde! O Cunegonde!
Countess  I believe Candide if you’ll allow them to
  complete their play
The day will end in happiness.
Candide  There can be no happiness without Cunegonde.
Countess  There can – somehow.
I have lived twice as long in this world as you.
I’ve seen two husbands die,
A baby which stopped breathing in my arms.
I thought – like you – that the world would be darkness
 always
But I’m here now with you
And I believe I’m – yes – happy.
Melancholy – however deep – will pass.
(What?
Is my simple lust for Candide now replaced by love?
It is.
Keep him safe from suffering.)

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 One  19

Candide  Please: make me sane.

JACQUES  Pangloss – yes I know your name, heard
 everything
That you told Candide.
I will make all well again.
There are doctors can cure you of your pox.
PANGLOSS  But at what price?
I’m a beggar.
In this world even an enema costs –
JACQUES  I have profit enough from trade to invest
In your cure.
Business requires
(When it’s practically applied) philosophy.
I need a book-keeper – the job is yours.
PANGLOSS  A cure? A job? Truly this is the best
Of all possible worlds.
JACQUES  Tomorrow, I set sail to open up our Lisbon
 market.
I invite you both to join me.
Countess  The action is moving towards its happy
 conclusion.
A ship.
PANGLOSS (with telescope)  The doctors saved one eye.
Who needs more?
The Maker knew this and made a spare.
And my one surviving ear –
Enough to hear the waves’ roar
And to listen to philosophic discourse.
JACQUES  Pangloss is right:
Every private ill is outnumbered by the general good.
CANDIDE  But my private grief is so strong
How can I believe that there is any general good
Will overwhelm it?

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 20  Candide

JACQUES  Everything is in balance:

The fact that personally you have suffered such a terrible
 wrong
Means that the Maker has made an ever better public
 world.
CANDIDE  There is logic in your argument but still –
PANGLOSS  Alarm!
A great wave, greater than I could imagine,
Approaching fast.
A wind –
CANDIDE  The sails are tearing!
JACQUES  The mast
Breaking!
A storm.
SAILOR  She’s taking in water.
JACQUES  You! You’re spreading panic. Silence.
SAILOR  But it’s true
The hull is broke
We’re filling up.
PREPARE FOR DEATH!
TO HELL OR HEAVEN AS EACH DESERVES!
WE’RE LOST!
JACQUES  SILENCE!
A fight. SAILOR pushes JACQUES overboard.
Candide  Jacques!
CANDIDE  Jacques! My friend my good good friend.
PANGLOSS  Is lost. The sea has him already.
Candide (to Playwright)  More death? Surely you could
  have used your artistry to change the story.
Playwright  It is the truth. All written in the – [journal]

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 One  21

Candide  Written in the – what?

CANDIDE  I’ll save him.
PANGLOSS  And drown yourself as well?
Candide you must at all times think philosophically.
Why was the port of Lisbon built?
Why did this storm come now?
Why?
All this was put in place by the great architect so that the
  Anabaptist could die
By drowning.
It is the Maker’s plan.
Everything is for the best
In the best of all possible worlds.
SAILOR  WE’RE DEAD!
Lisbon. A WOMAN enters.
WOMAN  Rosa! Rosa! Rosa!
Enter SAILOR.
SAILOR  My ship was torn apart. All were lost but me.
I was washed ashore.
Why do I live and the others die?
It’s my belief that I was the best man on that boat.
WOMAN  Rosa!
SAILOR  Who do you call for, woman?
WOMAN  My daughter.
SAILOR  Give a lucky sailor a kiss.
WOMAN  I will never eat or sleep or kiss again until my
  child is found.
SAILOR  She’s dead.
Look around you – the whole city of Lisbon
Torn apart
Everyone is dead but you and me.

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 22  Candide

WOMAN  Rosa lives. She must. Rosa!

SAILOR  See what I found amongst the rubble.
Have you ever seen more silver
In all your life?
It’s yours if you’ll come into the ruin there
And pleasure me.
WOMAN (with such riches, Rosa could be fed, clothed,
educated)  Will it take long? I’ll look for Rosa after.
Exit WOMAN and SAILOR.
Enter PANGLOSS and CANDIDE, separately.
CANDIDE  Pangloss. Alive.
PANGLOSS  Candide. You and I alone survived
The shipwreck.
Playwright  You see? And so it turns.
Enter ROSA, played by the same actress as CUNEGONDE.
Candide  Cunegonde. She lives again. Miraculous drama.
  Oh Cunegonde.
ROSA  No sir I was Cunegonde. But now I take another
  part. I am Rosa.
Candide  The world is spinning.
All sense is gone.
Cunegonde and not Cunegonde?
How can this be?
ROSA  Mother! Mother! Mother!
Candide  Stop this. I will not see Cunegonde take another
 part.
Countess  Find another girl to play the scene.
ROSA  No. There is only me. Cunegonde is finished and
  now I –
I am Rosa and
This sir was Lisbon.

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 One  23

But now is Hell.

A place where a great wave has torn apart the harbour
Huge sheets of fire burnt everything
And all is ash and rubble.
I would be in any world but this one.
Mother!
PANGLOSS  Don’t wish yourself – foolish girl – in another
 world.
It can be proved
That an earthquake which could not have happened
  anywhere but here
It is impossible for anything to be anywhere than where
  it is
Therefore: All is well.
 (Sings) If only man could see
With total rationality
Trust our Maker’s grand design
Everything will turn out fine
For this is the best
The best of all –
Candide  Enough! I’ll watch no more of this.
He charges with his knife. The players run out. Candide turns the
knife upon himself.
Countess  No Candide. The play has stopped.
Candide (threatening Playwright)  You’re the one to blame.
You invented these painful words, put them in those
  gabbling mouths.
Playwright  Invented? No! I took those words – exactly as
  you wrote them –
From your journal – here.
Candide  So that’s the game.
I see that you have stolen my life
And use it to torment me.

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 24  Candide

Playwright  To teach. To cure. To prove that everything is

  for the best in this the best –
Candide  Go. Before I burn your theatre to the ground
And kill you all.
The Playwright leaves.
Candide  I must leave – immediately.
Countess  To what end?
Candide  To find Cunegonde.
Countess  Find Cunegonde?
Candide – a greater illusion than any play.
Nobody could survive –
Candide  Cunegonde lives. Somewhere in the world she
  waits for me.
Countess  Lunacy.
Candide  Optimism.
I live
Although I should have died a hundred times.
And I know that Cunegonde too is breathing
Still needing
My touch.
The actors here
Repeated every word and move
According to the plan set down for them
Without a thought of what they said or did.
Doctor Pangloss taught me always to reason
That wherever I was, whatever happened,
It was for the best
But now I say: no Pangloss
I can make my existence better.
The player Candide was a fair copy
But he could never do what I do now:
Choose.
No matter what my journal records

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 One  25

No matter what this play has shown

No matter
I’ll change my story
And make my fate.
Exit Candide.
Countess  Candide!

Candide.indd 25 20/08/2013 13:22

 Two
A private reception room in a country hotel.
Sophie, Sarah (Sophie’s mum), Ted (Sophie’s granddad), Ben
(Sophie’s brother), Adam (Sophie’s boyfriend), Mike (Sophie’s
dad), Emma (Sophie’s dad’s girlfriend), Eva (a waitress).
Ted comes forward with a photo album, gives it to Sophie.
Ted  Sophie: It’s all in there.
Every moment of your eighteen years
In photos.
(Did you guess what we were up to?)
Mike  Look inside and say thank you, Sophie. Speech.
All  Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech.
Mike  Come on.
Sarah  She won’t. She never does.
Mike  I’m asking Sophie.
Sarah  Ask a mute to speak? There’s nothing there.
Mike  She’s had too much.
Someone take her glass away.

Sarah  Moment I first held you, looked deep into those eyes
Realised I’ve given birth to a mystery
Never let me see –
Why do you do that Sophie?
Sophie – I’ll come right out with it:
You scare me shitless.
However hard I try
I can’t see anything going on behind your eyes.
Are there any thoughts or feelings, worries, anger there?
Anything that makes you think or want or care?
Am I the only one? Have none of you ever:
‘Sophie are you a real person or some sort of absent
 freak?

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 Two  27

Come on don’t just move your lips, speak.’

(To Adam.) You’ve been – I assume – fucking her for a
  year –
Tell me who she is. Please. I want to hear.
Adam  Listen: I get what you say about Sophie.
She is a kind of blank, nothing much behind the eyes.
Sarah  Thank you.
Adam  But that’s what makes her so attractive.
I don’t think I’d get so horny if she were a more active
 Person.
Ben  Yeah, Mum. It’s cool.
It’s like: If the rest of life is boom boom boom
  Then Sophie’s in the chill-out room.
Mike  Just toast my little girl and then we’ll head off East
 again.
This is hardly worth the Air Miles that we’ve used.
Emma  Maybe I could –
Sarah (sheep noise) Baaaaa.
Emma  Sarah: I understand – and acknowledge – your
 hostility.
But I’m part of Mike’s life now.
You really don’t have to cause yourself – or me – or
  Sophie so much pain.
I’ve prepared some thoughts and
I’d really welcome the opportunity to share.
I think we get – all of us – the universe we ask for. From
many possible universes, Sophie chose this one. She chose
her family – her mum, dad – out of all the possible mums
and dads in all the possible worlds because she knew that she
would be given the most from this mum and this dad. And
now on her special day she sets out on her journey, knowing
that she can always send a message to the cosmos asking –

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 28  Candide

Sarah  I’m sorry

I’ve heard some / shit in my time –
Mike  Here we go. / Always out to pick a fight.
Sarah  I won’t stand and listen / to her crap.
Emma  You should try it.
Look at me.
Five years ago – I was nothing
Then I asked the cosmos
And now I have everything I need.
Sarah  My only need – and it isn’t deep –
Is to see that creep
Who – thank God – left me for you
Suffer a bomb blast.
And then for the cosmos to see you
For the charlatan you clearly are
And strike you with a thunderbolt.
Then for my dad – who
God knows has lived for ever –
To release me from this prison
By suffering some huge stroke,
Or vast coronary attack.
Then this [Ben] one to go back
To whichever mother he belongs to –
I refuse to believe he’s mine –
And maybe then Sophie – finally – will speak.
I’ve disgraced myself. I’ll get a taxi.
Ted  Ignore her. We always do.
Sophie  Mum.
You want me to speak and –
Actually for a long time now there is something that I
  really, really wanted to say
To all of you.
I’m sorry but I need – to help me –
She takes a gun out of her bag, points it at them.

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 Two  29

Sophie  Scared? Yeah well. That’s understandable.

I guess the trouble with my generation
We always seem OK. You ask us and we say ‘Me? Yeah.
  Doing fine.’
When actually all the time inside
We’re . . .
So I’ve decided today
To tell you what I’m really thinking
And then when I’ve finished speaking –
Mike  Sweetheart, is that a replica? A joke?
I don’t think –
Sophie  It’s real. And loaded. And I’ve had target practice.
Mum, Dad
Your generation
You think you’re ‘down with us’ our ‘mates’
It’s like
‘You wear the same skinny jeans as I do. Let’s have a puff
  together’ and – fine –
I’ve played along with that. But
I’ve got pretty pissed off with the whole charade –
Mum! My turn now, what you asked for.
Your generation’s supposed to leave an inheritance.
Not just money or a photo album. (Grand-dad: Thanks.)
But something . . . you were given the planet
And you were supposed to leave it
In a better state.
But what have you done?
You’ve asset stripped our existence.
Mike  Sophie love that isn’t true.
You think the past was good, the future bleak.
If you knew how –
Sophie  Go on then Dad. Speak.
Mike  When I was growing up, wasn’t just the photos that
  were black and white
Every bit of life

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 30  Candide

Fixed
Living in a country that was – basically – socialist.
Glasses on your nose – chosen by the state.
Everything driven by a hatred
Of individuality.
Stretching before me –
(We grew up without a hope or aspiration) –
Was a life-long job with some council or corporation.
I was carrying bins
– dirty, heavy – from the doorstep to the cart.
For ever. One day
‘They’re gonna privatise the bins’.
I could see this was the only chance I’d ever have.
Put in a bid – got the investors –
And now
This job that once we did as serfs
Was ours.
Working day and night.
Hiring, firing. Fighting,
Driving out the unions. Finally an offer
That we couldn’t refuse:
Sell to a conglomerate, Swedish based.
I’m a name your price consultant.
I wake up every day before it’s light
Never quite
Sure which country, continent I’m in,
So much work to do –
Not only for your generation but for generations after
  you –
Sophie  Nice words. But
Surely you can see
Your economy’s
Destroying everything we need to – ?
Mike  Look at the bigger picture.
In the eighteen years you’ve been alive
There’s been some boom and yeah some bust but
The basic drive

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 Two  31

Of capital – its urge for an average of three per cent

Of growth – has spread prosperity
China, India, now Africa
Health, peace and – in time – democracy.
Europe? Sure the shackles of the welfare state
Have stagnated us,
But this is the best the world has ever been.
Sophie  I’ve heard enough.
She fires. Hits Mike in the leg.
Mike  Shit.
Someone. Losing blood.
Sarah  Sweetheart, Daddy’s hurting.
Adam  Babe – are you OK?
Sophie  Keep away. Or you’ll be next.
Emma  Can I speak? I just want to say:
I acknowledge what you feel.
And I thank you for bringing this to the room.
Sophie  You know, capitalists
Are sort of cool: there’s always a chance that they might
  make a deal with you.
But you – ‘Oh Cosmos. Give me more’ – you I really
 loathe.
Emma  If each of us could actually be brave enough
To ask for what we need
The cosmos will provide.
Before, I had low esteem,
Low expectations, low wages
Didn’t feel entitled
To ask for what I wanted
But now I do
And so can you. You’re an incredible person. We’re all –
Mike  Someone call an ambulance.
My fucking knee.

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 32  Candide

Emma  It’s not too late

Whatever it is you want to –
Sophie shoots. Emma falls, dead.
Adam  Sophie –
You’re fucking crazy.
Love it.
This is it – the biggest high.
Now we’re actually alive.
Here’s what I want:
For all the orders, structures, systems –
Fall away.
For every day
To be a party, riot, loot and pillage, rape.
Whatever we want to do –
Let’s do it
Die young, live fast
Make every moment madder than the last.
Sophie  Why not?
She shoots Adam. He dies.
Ted  You – all of you – expect so much happiness.
I should have whacked it into her so she could whack it
  into you:
Sophie, happiness is a pointless thing to search for,
 pursue.
Life is – and I can say this because I’ve lived the longest
  here –
Only little shards of light. There’s much more darkness,
  pain, more fear.
And – honestly –
For all the lovely things – our lovely lives – that we’ve got
 now,
Nothing’s changed:
There’s a tiny portion of happiness to share, some have a
  little more
Some less
But the human portion –

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 Two  33

Sophie  Grampy I respect your honesty – I do –

But – this isn’t personal – I’m going to shoot you too.
Ted  I’ll see your Gran up there. I’ll be OK.
I’m better off amongst the dead.
Here. Directly in my –
Sophie fires. Ted dies.
Sarah  Mike. Look at me. Mike.
We’ve lost your dad [Mike].
Ben  Can I –? Soph, we’re pretty much the same age, me
  and you
So I understand, I see
Exactly where you’re coming from. And I think it’s really
  cool and funny
What you’re doing. Shooting everyone? Woah! Yes! Bang
  on the money.
I know you’ve always thought – and that’s cool – that I’m
  sort of thick
Which I sort of am. But I figured this:
The world is totally messed up and
I’ve been to exactly the same place in my head as you –
Don’t look at me like that. It’s true! –
But then I came up with a
Solution to cope with this insanity
And it will – I promise – work for you as well as me.
It’s simple but such a clever mental trick
The perfect anaesthetic for life.
All you do is say:
‘All the world’s an Xbox. The men and women – players.
We have our avatars and our levels and our points to
 score.’
Then you sit back and laugh at everything –
Greed, pain, war, suffering.
What does it mean? Nothing. Not any –
Sophie shoots him dead.

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 34  Candide

Eva  Please:
I’m not part of your family dispute.
I came to your country for a minimum wage
To pour your drinks.
Last week I discovered – a surprise –
I’m pregnant
And now suddenly
New purpose.
Why should I get up at five to start
Cleaning floors?
(My father was a university professor.)
For the baby’s future.
Why should I make a two-hour bus journey
To work in this horrible hotel
(My family owned a better one)
The stag nights, hen dos, drunken weddings.
Now I smile and say ‘Another drink, sir?’
I do everything
For my baby.
Sophie  How can you bring a child
Into this world? That is I think –
Eva  I didn’t decide
But now it seems / the most incredible –
Sophie  – the biggest evil.
She shoots Eva dead.
Sophie  From now on
I’m going to live stream what goes on OK?
I’m going to explain – no not a mad woman –
Exactly what I’ve done and why.
She takes out her ‘phone, films around the room.
Look at you standing there
Amongst the corpses.
You’re a rogue cell, Mummy.
Like all of us.

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 Two  35

Didn’t mean to be, not evil

But somewhere along the line
Mutation
And now we’re . . .
The Earth’s not our garden
To own and tend
Plant, pick whichever way we want.
The Earth’s a being.
For centuries, we’ve believed
Our species is superior.
‘Things get better’
Now we’re hunters, now we’re farmers,
Now we have cities, books
Better, better
Now we have machines
Cars, fridges
Better, better
Cut down forests
Dam up rivers
Fly through the air
Everything better
Talking to everyone, all the globe
This is the best we’ve ever been.
But – honestly –
We know what we’re doing
We know we’re
Eating up a body.
Getting better?
We’re cancer.
Sarah  I do everything I can.
All the time I think about the planet
And I –
Sophie  Oh Mummy! Sorting through your rubbish?
Separating green and brown glass?
Wind turbines?
There was a tipping point: it’s tipped.
Ozone’s blasted through

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 36  Candide

Sun is pouring in
Ice melting
Water’s rising
And you’re pissing in the wind.
Have you actually read the science?
Nature is fighting, clear us away.
Once we’re gone
The planet’s going to be just fine.
But the people –
Here’s the problem:
Our race keeps on getting bigger
Seven billion now
How long before we’re ten, fifteen, twenty billion?
But the portion of the earth
That will be inhabitable
As it all heats up
Much smaller
Maybe enough for a three, four billion.
In my lifetime
There’s going to be millions upon millions moving up the
  hemisphere –
From southern Spain at first, then whole continents
All demanding to live here,
A cooler climate.
What we going to do?
Gun towers on every beach?
Reservoirs will be guarded by armies.
You’ve seen wars for oil, right?
Wait ’til the water wars begin.
So it’s kinder, better, saner, to start the culling of the
  human race today
That’s why I say to everyone
Do the same as me:
Get a gun, walk into a room – any room –
And shoot.
Sarah  That all makes sense.
My head agrees with you

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 Two  37

But in my gut
Optimism
We’ll somehow –
Some scientist or god –
miracle –
Be saved.
I love you Sophie.
Sophie  I know you do.
Sarah lunges at Sophie. Sophie fires but misses Sarah. Sarah
knocks the gun out of Sophie’s hand, tackles her to the ground. A
struggle to reach the gun. Sophie gets there first, sticks the gun to
her own head and shoots herself. Sarah holds Sophie’s body.
Enter an actor representing Voltaire.
Voltaire  In 1755 François-Marie Arouet known as Voltaire
 was moved to write his philosophical tale Candide by the
loss of approximately a hundred thousand lives in an
Earthquake in Lisbon.
 pproach my friends and stop and see
A
Walls toppled, buildings of lost dignity
Which now crush men beneath their stone and lead
Mountains of corpses, women, children – dead.
Voices calling ‘Help me’ with their final breath
Torment unimaginable, forcing death.
When we hear these weak and frightened cries
Break from the ashes, see the smoke arise
Can we proclaim eternal verity,
Believe a God allows this cruelty?
Can we look upon this bloody, broken sight
And say that any God would find it right?
Was it because she strayed or sinned or swore
That this mother clasps and wails her infant’s corpse?
We say: This fallen city can be soon rebuilt
New humans through its streets will surely spill
And always wealth is made. It’s understood
Some suffer now but all is for the greater good.

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 38  Candide

Our words are nothing, a bitter sound,

Salt rubbed and rubbed again into a wound.
We must not argue a great eternal cause
Say this was ­pre-­ordained by Heaven’s laws.
I see chaos, chance, a universe of cruelty,
Evil – all things denied in our philosophy.
I cannot say our current state is right:
But I will learn to bear this present life.
Believing after universal pain, tears, strife
This darkness shall be turned to light.

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 Three

a.
Tim, Sarah, Hannah.
Tim  But if we don’t start with the shooting –
Sarah  That’s not the story.
Tim  Every story has a beginning and yours begins –
Sarah  This a healing story.
Tim  But healing from what? We need to show your
daughter, the gun –
Sarah  Hannah said –
Tim  Hannah said? Hannah said?
Sarah  ‘Your life is a story which you tell first yourself and
then other people. Don’t hold on to that one moment. Your
story begins where you choose. There are so many
possibilities.’
Hannah  I’m a narrative therapist.
Tim  Hooray.
Hannah  Sarah is in control of her story. Sarah has
connected her experiences in a chain of action and reaction.
Sarah has decided that her story begins with her search for
healing. Sarah doesn’t want to see the massacre in a film.
That’s what Sarah chooses.
Tim  Then we don’t have a story. Unless we can –
Sarah  I don’t need to do this. I don’t want a film.
Tim  But you came here. Why did you . . .?
Sarah  Actors? Fake blood? Going through it all again.
Living it again. I want to be living my future.

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 40  Candide

Tim  Listen. This feeling, your feeling – I understand – I’ve

been on this journey before. I’ve worked with victims of
torture, serial killers. At first they think ‘A film? About me?
With famous actors. Yeah!’ Flattery. But then –
Sarah  It’s not flattery.
Tim  But then there’s the next stage. ‘This will mean living
it again.’ And the torture victims, murderers want out as you
want out. But then they – I’ve seen this – work through that
– they realise: ‘I can share this story so that others can be
changed. And maybe I have a – yes – duty to tell this story,
all of it, to the world.’ Are you going to deny – are you going
to be – (is this the word? Yes it is) – selfish?
Hannah  Ask yourself: Is this person an empath? Or a
bully? There are choices.
Tim  I loved your book. I was moved by your book. A huge
act of generosity. Why did you write the book if you didn’t
want . . .? Sarah?
Hannah  People I work with create a framework for their
experience, observe how one thing leads to another. They
write a story. Sarah chose to publish her story. I endorsed
that choice. An act of closure. The first stage of healing is
complete.
Tim  And the next stage is beginning. So.
Sarah  I was wrong – sorry – to come here. I made the
wrong choice. I’m choosing to leave now.
Hannah  We’ll find a taxi.
Tim  Bitch. Selfish bitch. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But my
feelings. I have feelings. Your book – your great important
book – has been read by – what? – a few thousand people.
Hannah  ‘What is he choosing to do to me with the words
that he’s using?’

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 Three, a.  41

Tim  But so many other hundreds of thousands of –

millions of people – there are people across the world who
need your story – and you would deny them that journey?
Bitch.
Hannah  ‘Do I choose to engage with this person?’
Tim  I’m begging you to share – to consider – sharing your
story. We could be there with you – you wouldn’t be alone
anymore – we’ll be there when the gun is pulled – look at us
standing beside you feeling what you feel as the bodies fall –
we’re there with you Sarah.
Hannah  Sarah: What do you choose?
Sarah  I choose . . .
Hannah  Pause. Reflect.
Sarah  To stay.
Hannah  Yes?
Sarah  Yes.
Sarah  And I choose to work on my story as a film.
Tim  Thank you Sarah. Thank you. So if we begin – can we
consider the possibility of beginning – with the shooting? If
we don’t experience that then everything else is . . .
Sarah  Would there be blood?
Tim  There’s a screenwriter I’d like you to . . . Have a look
at these [DVDs]. Dark, very personal –
Sarah  My story has a happy ending.
Tim  But with redemption. I think this writer’s ready –
Hannah  We’ll watch these together. Sarah and I.
Tim  Sarah: I think you two will really get along. He’s a
sensitive – he’ll really – I’m sure – get you.

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 42  Candide

b.
Tim, Sarah, Hannah, Screenwriter.
Screenwriter  Shakespeare must have been suffering – I’m
  convinced – from bipolar disorder
(Do you have any food?)
Surely you either have the kind of brain that sees the
  world as tragic
Or comic?
How could the same person write King Lear –
(I took a couple of pills, slept right through the airline
 meal)
All social bonds destroyed, family nothing, pointless
  universe –
And As You Like It?
I loved your book
(Can you send out the girl?
Anything will do
A sandwich or a burger)
Very moved
Or was he brilliant at faking – as they say – sincerity
Showman, businessman
Don’t you just hate his talent?
Am I talking too much?
Tim  It’s good to have you in the room.
Screenwriter  Tired. Nervous. I always talk too much.
(Jet lag is the pits
I’ve never found a way to cope with it
If I suddenly crash can you just point me towards a bed?)
I saw you, daytime TV
Your book had just come out
I really fancy alcohol
Now that’s a story worth telling
(Is it early, late?)
I suppose by
Tempest, Cymbeline, Winter’s Tale –
You do get some sort of – what? – balance.

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 Three, b.  43

(And if I’m honest a line of coke.

Basically I’m clean but –)
So – what – is that the bipolar cured?
Or was that him leaving genre behind
Really –?
(What happened to airline stewards?
I remember when they used to flirt)
Or maybe the market changed
So he wrote a different kind of –
(Am I getting old?)
So we start OK we start.
It’s a fantastic scene –
The family –
The gun’s pulled. Yes?
Heads start exploding. Yes?
Blood’s flowing – Is that something you –? Help me.
Tim  We need to find a way to show that but somehow –
Screenwriter  If I’m being too obvious then –
Tim  We begin with gun. Yes. But we find a way. A
sensitive, a discreet handling –
Screenwriter  Yes yes. Sensitive. Discreet. Good. So in as
sensitive and discreet a way as possible we –
Hannah  What’s important . . . it’s important that we
emphasise the healing –
Screenwriter  Healing. Good.
Hannah  Because Sarah has – if you take a moment now to
empathise with Sarah – Sarah has huge vulnerabilities – we
need to respect –
Screenwriter  I want to know you Sarah. Really –
Hannah  This is a story about healing.
Tim  That’s what we’re after.
Screenwriter  I can do that. If that’s the direction we’re –
Tim  Of course you can.

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 44  Candide

Screenwriter  I get the arc you’re looking for. It’s the – it’s
the . . . Candide principle.
Sarah  What’s that? What’s the –?
Screenwriter  Shit happens. We get over it. We carry on.
Nothing crushes us. Optimism.
Sarah  Is that a book? Candide?
Screenwriter  It’s a book.
Sarah  I’d like to read that book.
Screenwriter  I want to learn from you Sarah. I want to
change. I want to grow with you. I want – you have it, I don’t
– optimism. That’s a whole new market for me and I can’t go
there unless you allow me to . . . please Sarah save me
change me heal me please.
Hannah  Pause. Reflect. Who is this person? What do they
want from me? Will he harm me or heal me?
Sarah  Yes.
Screenwriter  Thank you. If we have some time together.
Sarah and me.
Sarah  I want Hannah to be there. It wouldn’t be right.
Telling my story if Hannah wasn’t –
Screenwriter  Well alright then. You and me and –
Tim  The girl will organise an office, anything else you . . .
take your time. Find the tone. Tone is everything.

c.
Tim, Sarah, Hannah, Screenwriter.
Sarah and Screenwriter read from a scene from their draft,
including character names and stage directions.
Screenwriter  Sarah moves towards Sophie, like a bird
whose wounded wing hangs in lost confusion.
Sophie   Oh Mummy, what have I done?

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 Three, c.  45

Sarah  Sarah’s point of view. She looks around the room.

We see the bodies of the family on the floor of the hotel
room. They look calm. As though they were sleeping.
Sarah  Killed them, my love. But why –?
Screenwriter  Sophie: This pain inside.
Sarah  Sarah: I know darling. Mummy understands.
Screenwriter  Sophie: A sadness so big. I wish I could be
well again.
Sarah  Sarah: I know.
Sarah reaches out to Sophie. Sophie softens at her touch.
Sarah runs her hands through Sophie’s hair.
Screenwriter  Sophie: No mummy. It’s too late for me. For
so long I’ve asked the voices to stop. But they’re always
there, screaming inside my head. I’ll never be well again.
Mummy, I’m going to kill myself now.
Sarah  Sarah: No darling.
Sarah falls to the ground, an animal instinct overwhelming
her as she clings to her daughter’s legs.
Sarah  Please don’t leave me on my own.
Screenwriter  Sophie: I’ve poisoned the others. But there’s
a last drop for me.
Screenwriter  Sophie lifts up the wine glass and drinks the
poison.
There is a hushed silence as though this were a sacred
moment, a transubstantiation.
Sophie falls down beside her mother, all too human now but
still with a fading glow of something greater than human.
Screenwriter  Sophie: Don’t have long now, Mummy.
Promise me this.
Sarah  Sarah: Anything my darling.

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 46  Candide

Screenwriter  Sophie: Learn from this moment. Change,

Mummy. Change and grow.
Sarah  Sarah: I will my darling yes. I’ll be a better person.
Sleep now, my angel.
Tim  It’s shit.
Sarah  Sorry?
Tim  It isn’t honest.
Screenwriter  Some places it gets sentimental. But Hannah
felt –
Tim  If you’re not going to be honest – then why are we are
here? If you’re not going to show us what actually
happened, what it actually felt like –
Hannah  Sarah felt, I felt that –
Tim  I’m not talking to you. If you aren’t prepared to go –
if you’re not prepared to make an honest record, if there’s
not even a fucking gun.
Screenwriter  I pushed for the gun.
Tim  Nobody’s life was ever changed by telling them a lie.
Did you say any of that shit? Did Sophie say any of that –?
Sarah  Yes. Most of it. Yes.
Tim  You know what? I don’t believe you – you’re a fucking
liar.
Screenwriter  That’s the story Hannah wanted us to –
Tim  And you – I thought you were an artist – you’re just a
fucking accomplice. Why are you here wasting my fucking
time?
Hannah  You’re weren’t there. We worked together. Three
of us. To make this scene. Not perfect. But it’s a delicate
process to –
Tim  Huh!

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 Three, c.  47

Hannah  This is not – you are taking a very damaged – a

person who was almost broken – piecing together that story
– if there’s a moment of trauma, moment that you can be
held in for a lifetime – then I say let’s leave that moment –
acknowledge it’s there but let’s move on to the next step
and –
Tim  You’re going back into that office. I’m going to lock
you in that fucking office until I see a scene with a girl and a
gun and some words that actually speak the truth.
Sarah  This is the story that I want to –
Tim  No no no! Tell me the truth.
Screenwriter  I think we – we didn’t get it right the first
time, Sarah. That’s OK. Who gets things right the first time?
Not me. I think Hannah was really interested in changing
some things when actually we have to show – you know – the
Candide principle – step one: shit happens. First the shit has
to happen and then . . .
Tim  Have you read Candide, Sarah?
Sarah  No.
Tim  I’ll send the girl out. We’ll get you a copy.
Hannah  Sarah doesn’t need Candide. What is that? The
Candide principle. Sarah and I built a framework.
Screenwriter  Can we –? If Sarah and I can work together.
Alone. The two of us. Because maybe – yes – maybe the
‘framework’ is a prison.
Hannah  Sarah needs me. I’m part of the –
Screenwriter  I just think: too many cooks, shitty broth. If
it’s just me and Sarah then I think – can’t we Sarah? – we can
really unlock something which . . . What do you say Sarah?
Just you and me. A few days. Being honest. Then we can . . .
Hannah  Pause. Reflect. Choose.
Sarah  Alright. Yes. Just you and me.

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 48  Candide

d.
Tim, Sarah, Hannah, Screenwriter.
Reading as before.
Screenwriter  Sarah moves towards Sophie, like a bird who
has been trapped in an oil spill and will never be clean.
  Sophie: Oh Mummy, what have I done?
Sarah  Sarah’s point of view. She looks around the room.
We see the bodies of the family on the floor of the hotel
room. They are twisted, misshapen, drenched in blood. As
though they were in Hell itself.
  Sarah: Killed them, my love. But why –?
Screenwriter  Sophie: This pain inside.
Sarah  Sarah: I know darling.
Screenwriter  Sophie: If only that man had never existed.
My own father. Inside me. Satisfying his lusts.
Sarah  Sarah: Shoot me Sophie. I’ve been a bad mother. I
should have protected you. My body is ready for the bullet.
Screenwriter  Sophie raises the gun. Considers for a
moment –
Hannah  No.
Tim  Carry on.
Hannah  No.
Tim  This is much better.
Screenwriter  Sophie considers shooting her mother.
There is a moment between the two women, a silence in
which they acknowledge their shared pain and anger. But
then Sophie turns the gun towards herself and –
Hannah  This? No. This? This is fantasy. Sarah was, is a
good mother. And there’s no indication that Mike ever –
Tim  Can we – please – continue with the scene?
Screenwriter  Sophie: I’m going to kill myself now.

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 Three, d.  49

Hannah  This isn’t honest. What’s honest about this?

Sarah  Yes but in Candide –
Hannah  Nothing.
Sarah  In Candide, they go through everything. Hanging,
drowning, stabbing – they experience all that but still
they –
Hannah  Asking your own – abused – daughter to shoot
you?
Sarah  But they survive. All those things. And they’re
optimistic. So unless you show –
Hannah  All a, a, a . . . fabrication.
Sarah  You can’t have the optimism without the pain.
Hannah  Sarah – the work that we did.
Sarah  You go through the pain, come out more optimistic.
Hannah  I’m going to call a taxi.
Sarah  What are you doing?
Hannah  We’re going to the airport. I will not allow Sarah
to be –
Tim  Allow? Allow? Allow? Is that right? You have to
allow –?
Hannah  I don’t think it’s best if Sarah chooses –
Tim  When you allow.

Screenwriter  Sarah and I have read Candide, Sarah and I

have worked on her story together and I feel and Sarah feels
– that we – we’re – together – we can make this a proper, an
optimistic story. And you want to take that away? You want
to control the story Sarah tells? You want to be – disgusting –
Sarah’s gaoler?
Sarah  I’m staying here.
Hannah  I really think it’s best if –

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 50  Candide

Sarah  I pause, I assess and I choose to stay and I choose to

carry on with the scene from ‘Sophie shoots herself. The
blood explodes on the –’
Hannah  Sarah, not all of our choices are –
Sarah  I don’t need you anymore. You’re holding me back.
My story. Starting to see my story differently and that’s not
something you –
Hannah  There is a process, a method. Unless you follow –
Sarah  This is my story and when I do this [clicks fingers]
you’re gone.
Hannah  But –
Sarah clicks her fingers.

e.
Tim, Sarah, Screenwriter.
Tim  I have a routine. With a new draft I like to read it in
bed. I like to sleep on a new draft so last night I . . . (Turns
pages of new script.) Sarah cuts herself with the broken vodka
bottle blah blah Sarah burns herself on the flame in the hotel
kitchen blah blah Sarah allows herself to be pushed against
the wall by the drunk, taunting him again and again with
‘Hit me hit me hit me ’ blah blah Sarah’s face is mutilated by
the soldier’s knife blah blah Sarah falls to the bathroom floor
the blood flowing from her torn stomach blah blah the train
hits Sarah throwing her already bruised body into the icy
river. Sarah . . . last night I didn’t sleep.
Screenwriter  What is this? I didn’t write this.
Sarah  I wrote this. By myself.
Screenwriter  By yourself? Why would you –? That is
fucking disgusting.

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 Three  51

Sarah  Isn’t it an amazing feeling? When you really – when

you smash the framework, fuck the order and just let
everything come out.
Screenwriter  This is pornography.
Sarah  This is the story that I want to tell.
Tim  It isn’t the truth.
Sarah  This is what it feels like to me, yes – the truth.
Screenwriter  But the Candide principle –
Sarah  Have you actually read Candide?
Screenwriter  Once. Some time ago. But the principle –
Sarah  Read it again. It’s fantastic. Of course there’s the
optimism bits – which are the lies – that’s when they’re
tricking themselves – but the truth –
Screenwriter  You’re not the writer. I’m the writer.
Sarah  I don’t need you anymore. I’ve written it myself.
Tim  This? This isn’t a film. This isn’t a story. Nothing
changes. Blood, pain, violence. First page to last. Who wants
to see –?
Sarah  I want to see it. All of it.
Tim  You think the finance is going to follow this?
Sarah  I don’t care.
Tim  Then fuck you. And fuck Candide.
Sarah  You know what I want?
Tim  Get the fuck out of here.
Sarah  I want to take every single event from here [the
book of Voltaire’s Candide] and then hand them out one at a
time as gifts to the world. Here’s your father’s head smashed
open. For you. Take it. Here’s your entire family lost by
drowning. For you. Come on. That’s it. Have it. Here’s an

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 52  Candide

army raping you again and again. For you. That’s right.
That’s good. Because without suffering what are we?
Children. The only moment that I was properly alive. In
that room. With Sophie. And the gun and the blood. All the
rest is just pretending. Thank you for being here. You were
useful for a while. But you don’t understand. You’re little
people. No suffering. So you’re no good any more. From
now on I can only be with people who’ve really suffered.
Like Candide.

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 Four
El Dorado.
Enter Candide with Tetuan, Tucamon and Cacombo. Tetuan
leads a sheep.
Candide  My friends. (May I call you friends?) So many
new things in your country. Only one day here and I’ve seen
– As a philosopher –
Tetuan  A fillsafa. What’s that?
Candide  A ‘philosopher’ is . . . Someone who asks
questions.
Tucamon  Such as?
Candide  Such as: Can I choose the path my life will take?
Or is the universe inherently determinist? Can I can
reconcile Free Will with a Maker’s Grand Design? It’s
something I’ve been considering since I left the palace of a
Countess who – My tutor Pangloss was (I see now) a
determinist. Whereas I –
Tucamon  A little slower, please.
Tetuan  We never met a fillsafa before. We never met
anyone from over the mountains before.
Candide  So I’m –?
Tucamon  The first stranger to ever come to El Dorado.
Yes.
Candide  A new world.
Cacombo  Ask another question. ­Phil-­o-­so-­pher.
Candide  I will. Do you have a God here in El Dorado?
Cacombo  Of course.
Candide  Of course.

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 54  Candide

Cacombo  Inside each of us.

Candide  Inside. Ha!
Tucamon  There’s a god inside you, Candide.
Cacombo  Didn’t you know that? What do they tell you in
your own country?
Candide  In my own country? Mostly – I see now – lies. Are
there priests here? A church?
Tucamon  I don’t know those words. Cacombo?
Candide  ‘Church’. Where do you go to pray? Ask for God
to give you things.
Cacombo  Why would we need ‘things’? Look around.
She’s given us everything we need. But we thank her
everyday. Is that also ‘pray’?
Candide  So: do you believe that there is a grand design, a
Maker?
Tucamon  We make the design ourselves together
everyday.
Candide  Then you have Free Will.
Cacombo  We do? Ha!
Candide  Is there a King?
Tucamon  A . . .?
Candide  Someone you respect and fear, makes the rules.
Tucamon  We do that. All of us.
Candide  All of you? So Pangloss was right. Perfection is
possible. This is – no church, no priests, no King – the best
place on all the Earth. But – oh teach me! – how do you
make the rules without a King?

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 Four  55

Cacombo  Like this. First hour of the morning each person

asks themself: what needs to be done to make our world?
Then we gather in small groups –
Tucamon  And we decide which of those suggestions to
offer to the Gathering.
Tetuan  Most things are agreed at the local gathering but
they can go the regional gathering or even the –
Candide  Every day?
Tucamon  The mornings. In the afternoon, we work.
Cacombo  And in the evening, story-telling.
Tucamon  And sexual pleasure.
Candide  The perfect way to live. And do you each have
one other person who you love for your whole life?
Cacombo  One person for your whole life? No! Why make
another person private property?
Candide  But you must love –
Cacombo  Everyone equally.
Candide  But my Cunegonde. Her beauty is not ‘equal’. If
she were here now –
Cacombo  We all share the same atoms. There is no one so
separate that they are not part of the whole human race. I
am as much Cungon as Cungon is Cungon.
Candide  Impossible!
Tetuan  Yes Candide. I am Cungun too. You may have
sexual pleasure with me whenever we decide it would bring
us both happiness.
Candide  My friends, your philosophy –
Cacombo  We are philosophers!

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 56  Candide

Candide  Is a wonderful thing. Free from kings and

priests? Yes. But free from love ? From Cunegonde?
Enter Martina, with others bringing balloons.
Tucamon  Balloons! No more philosophy.
Tetuan  This morning’s gathering we decided: for you – a
special ceremony.
Cacombo  Welcome to El Dorado, Candide.
Martina  Candide. Friend. Yesterday you were carried over
the mountains by a great wind –
Candide  A tornado.
Martina  A t­ orner-­do which brought you here to El
Dorado. Landed in the market square. So frightening. Our
heads told us – yes, you are made of the same atoms as us.
But still – we have never seen anyone who was not born in El
Dorado so some of us – I say some of us, I mean me – I was
frightened of you at first. Stranger. But now after one day,
we love you as our own. And since you will be spending a
lifetime in El Dorado –
Candide  A lifetime?
Martina  Unless another wind suddenly appears – unlikely –
Cacombo  Impossible.
Martina  And carries you back over the mountains –
Candide  Has anyone ever left El Dorado?
Martina ­
No one.
Candide  But if a person wants to travel –
Tucamon  Why should they want to travel?
Tetuan  Don’t you like it here Candide?
Cacombo  Wait. Perhaps . . . Is the world beyond the
mountains better than this Candide? Sometimes I’ve

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 Four  57

thought: if only we could travel we would see such people

and such places perhaps this El Dorado would then seem
terrible.
Candide  In the world beyond the mountains –
Cacombo  Yes?
Candide  There are many wars.
Tetuan  What’s that word? Wah?
Candide  War is great groups of men killing each other.
And earthquakes. Shipwrecks. Executions.
Cacombo  We don’t know these things. Are they beautiful?
Candide  No. They are terrible things that bring suffering,
pain.
Cacombo  Candide: Which is better? El Dorado or the
world beyond the mountains?
Candide  El Dorado. This is the best of all worlds.
Cacombo  Then, stay here. Yes?
Martina  Candide: we offer you – citizenship of El Dorado.
Do you accept?
Candide  I do.
Martina  Then we’ll welcome you.
Song of Welcome to El Dorado
For everyone a time to work
Beneath the shining sun
For everyone a time to dance
A dance with everyone
For everyone a time to learn
To be mother, to be son
For everyone a time to see
We live for everyone

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 58  Candide

For everyone a time to speak

And when the speaking’s done
For everyone a time to give
Their love to everyone
For everyone an apple
For everyone a tree
For everyone a song to sing
This song’s for you and sung by me.
Enter Oreillon, covered in dust, some cuts.
Oreillon  I’m late. I wanted to be here to sing the new
song. Can we begin again?
Cacombo  Something wrong Oreillon?
Oreillon  Everything is good.
Cacombo  But you’re cut. Dust. You look like a ghost.
Martina  Something’s happened. Tell us.
Oreillon  My father had a new plan for irrigation. He
wanted to tell me about it before he brought it to the
Gathering. So we went walking in the foothills.
Tucamon  Oreillon’s father always brings new ideas to the
Gathering.
Oreillon  Suddenly – there was no warning – a rock fall.
We ran away but my father wasn’t fast enough. He was
covered in the rocks. I tried to dig him out but I didn’t get
to him in time. His life has ended.
Martina  We’ll report it to the Gathering. His name will be
recorded in the history.
Oreillon  Thank you.
They start singing again but –
Candide  Wait! A man has just been killed. And still you –?
Tucamon  We’ll tell stories of him later. Now is not the
time to –

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 Four  59

Candide  Will ­no o ­ ne weep and tear their hair? Will n

­o
one ask ‘Does life have any meaning if a man, an inventor,
a father can suddenly be –?’
Cacombo  What’s this Candide? More philosophy?
Candide  This – friend – is human feeling.
Cacombo  But we are all made of the same atoms.
Oreillon’s father lives on in me.
Martina  And me.
Tetuan  And me.
Candide  Oreillon: Don’t you feel sadness?
Rage?
A need to curse
A universe
Of chance,
Calamity?
Oreillon  What would be the point of feeling
Such things?
How would that bring me –
Or my father –
Happiness?
Enter Padres, with stones in a cloth.
Padres  A rockfall in the hills!
I rushed to see the sliding mountain
And found these stones
Such as I’ve never seen before.
Can someone tell me
(I don’t recognise them)
What they are?
Martina  Friends: let’s study these stones, their properties.
Perhaps there’s a use for them.
Padres  Yes.
They come together, inspecting the stones and debating their use.

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 60  Candide

Enter Voltaire.
Voltaire  Voltaire’s popular pamphlet ‘The Man With
  Forty Ecu’:
True wealth is this: a force of men who will work and
Be adequately paid for their labour, so that they live well:
Some individual men will
Grow rich, some poor
That is the natural order.
Economic levelling is pointless.
Waste neither time nor money on the education of the
 labourer:
It will spoil him for the plough.
Private property should be protected.
It is through property that selfish passion is turned to
  public good.
Yes, a man may have no natural right to property
But still he must have it:
If man no longer desires to increase his own prosperity
What passion will drive him to live?
Tetuan  Too soft to use for cutting.
Tucamon  And yet not soft enough to mould into a cup.
Martina  I propose: of no use.
All  Yes.
Candide  Friends. This is pure gold. Is there more?
Padres  I think – a guess – the whole hill is made of
‘guld’.
Candide  ‘Gold’.
We must begin to mine immediately
Picks and shovels at first
In time we can develop machinery
Proper drainage, excavation.
Who’ll be the first to break the ground?
Quick! To the hills!

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 Four  61

Tetuan  What will you do with those strange stones?

Candide  Sell them of course.
Cacombo  Sull? What’s that?
Martina  Padres. Take them back.
Candide  Is there no market here for gold?
An experiment.
If I offered you this [holds his shoe]
Or this [holds up a handful of gold]
Which would you choose?
All of them point to the shoe.
Candide  How differently you think.
In the rest of the world: This [shoe]
Can maybe make you smile when new
Or if it rubs your toe – a grumble.
But for this [gold]
A man will travel across the world
Will fight a war
Will kill a friend or father.
Tucamon (laughs)  For a stone?
Cacombo  But this [shoe] is of use
Keeps your foot dry and safe from harm.
And this –?
Candide  This [shoe] – Cacombo you’re right – is of use
 o why when I hold this [gold]
S
Does my heart pound?
Why?
Because – I suppose –
This I can turn into anything I want.
A thousand shoes.
Cacombo  That’s magic. That’s superstition.
Martina  I propose: We thank Candide for his suggestions
for the stones and then return them to the hills.

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 62  Candide

All  Yes.
Tetuan  Have a balloon Candide. More beautiful.
Candide  My friends, I envy you.
Man is often driven to explore
(I’ve seen it)
By hunger for this [gold]
conquest, slaughter, plunder, war
The desire
To turn everything he sees
Into subjects, slaves, commodities:
Terrible.
Padres  Will you give me the stone Candide?
Candide  (A stone? She’s right. I’ll return the – no!
Oh. So why am I so reluctant to –?
Think, Candide.)
Padres  Candide?
Candide  Just a stone? No. This stone is need, urgency,
  progress, hope, accumulation.
You will not take it
Away from me!
He throws his shoe at Padres.
Cacombo  Are you ill Candide?
Candide  Friends! You have gold in El Dorado!
Don’t waste this opportunity.
I’d rather you had
A drive for power, profit
Domination
Than these calm countenances.
If I could grant you one human quality:
Greed.
To invent
Mining equipment
Greed

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 Four  63

Pumps to drain
A system of lighting underground
Breathing apparatus
Greed
Faster transport to take the precious metal
To the hungry markets
Greed.
Cacombo  Enough.
Candide  I’ll leave you.
My travels must continue
Across the globe
In search of Cunegonde
My one true love.
Cacombo  But we are all Cune –
Candide  No! Each of us is individual. Each of us is alone.
Beautifully alone.
Cacombo  But you told us: the world out there is –
Candide  Terrible. But I must go there.
Cacombo  Is this philosophy?
Martina  Candide is unhappy here. Can anyone propose a
way to send him over the mountains?
Candide  Yes. Send me across the mountains
Please
Or I’ll be driven to
Kill myself and all of you.
Propose a way.
Oreillon  My father did once
Tell me of one idea he had
Should anyone ever want to travel over the mountains –
Tetuan  Why would they?
Oreillon  He said:

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 64  Candide

Candide  What?
Oreillon  It wouldn’t work.
Candide  What?
Oreillon  He said:
If a person were to sit upon a sheep
And then if that person were to tie that sheep
With a multitude of balloons
(Such as we use at celebrations)
That person might rise high in the air.
Candide  Yes. But how then could that person then move
forward or –
Oreillon  Well. He suggested
That if that person were to encourage the animal in the
  violent emission
Of certain gases then . . .
Propulsion, steerage.
And so the mountains might be crossed.
It would of course never work.
Candide  Has anybody ever tested that?
Cacombo  Why would anyone test something so –?
Candide  For love of this [gold] men will try anything
 ry and fail, try and fail, try and fail, try – succeed!
T
Progress.
Give me a sheep.
Tetuan  My old sheep fly? Ha.
Candide sits on the sheep.
Candide  Tie your balloons to the animal.
Cacombo  Try – and fail. You’ll see.
The balloons are tied to the sheep. It begins to lift off the ground.
Cacombo  Your father was right!

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 Four  65

Candide  Your father was an inventor.

In the outside world he would be rich, powerful.
(If I can encourage the release of ‘certain gases’
Then goodbye El Dorado.)
You find those stones ugly.
Could I take all of them?
Cacombo  It works. Anyone of us could travel.
Candide  All of them! Quick!
Martina  Let him have them. Let him go. He doesn’t
belong in El Dorado.
Padres gives Candide the gold.
Martina  No bitterness. Wish him well on his journey.
The sheep rises higher.
Candide  Goodbye
You simple, good, perfect, dull people
Goodbye.
I’m leaving you for
A world of suffering
And evil.
I want them back again.
With the gold of El Dorado
I’ll be a rich man
And I’ll send great armies
Across the world
Every castle will be toppled
Every city razed
Every forest hacked
And ocean drained
Until I find my Cunegonde.
I’ll dress her in brocades and jewels
Wash her in oils
Lay her in the finest silks
And love her – and only her –
For a lifetime.
Sheep! Carry me to Cunegonde.

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 66  Candide

The sheep farts loudly and carries Candide over the mountains.
All leave apart from Cacombo.
Cacombo  I miss you Candide.
Why?
When you are in all of us.
Everyone’s Candide.
And yet I wish you were still here.
How can that be?
Maybe because you’re . . .
Unique.
Maybe we’re all unique.
And maybe there’s no god in us
And maybe we need a King and –
Oh. Too many thoughts.
I’m a philosopher.
It’s painful.

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 Five
Nurse shows in a group of wealthy individuals, including Sarah.
Nurse  Welcome to the Candide Room.
Look about you.
Here you see the school book
In which Candide
First noted the elements of Panglossian philosophy.
And here’s the handkerchief
(Is everyone familiar with the story?)
Which Cunegonde dropped one day
Leading to the chain of cause and effect
Which sent Candide on his journey
Round the world.
That’s a Bulgar’s hat
Which Candide wore in battle.
And this – the rubber almost entirely perished now –
The remains of a balloon from Candide’s stay
In El Dorado.
While over here –
Sarah  And what of Candide himself?
Nurse  He lives on – through these artefacts.
Sarah  But there’s a story
(You can guess what I’m about to say)
That Candide’s
Here in the Institute.
Frozen in suspended –
Nurse  Rumours. Nothing more. And now: Doctor
Pangloss.
Enter Pangloss.
Pangloss  Honoured guests
You are, I’m sure, all aware of our mission
Here at the Pangloss Institute:
Optimism for all.
Over the years, we’ve made substantial progress

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 68  Candide

No doubt due to the fact that

My philosophy has been constantly rebooted.
I’ve dispensed with the Maker and his grand design
For the eighteenth century they were fine
But ours is an age which sees that everything –
Sickness, health,
Wealth, poverty,
Happiness, unhappiness –
Is an individual’s responsibility
And so we’ve – (yes I shed a tear but progress is progress) –
Let God slip quietly away.
But our core message remains:
Be optimistic.
The Institute has now achieved a success rate
Of 77.3 per cent.
But the remaining 22.7 per cent of humanity. What of
 them?
In the last five decades our brand of
Pangloss Pharmaceuticals
Has provided
A range of short and long-term treatments
For pessimists.
Perhaps I could invite one of our nurses
To describe her practice with these chronic cases?
Nurse  My message to each patient is simple:
It’s vital that you monitor what’s in your head,
Ensure a negative thought doesn’t spread
Like a cancer in your system
You must:
A – take your medications regularly
And B – never allow yourself the luxury of a negative
 thought.
All I ask of you is that you’re happy
That is your only duty.
Pangloss  How does that sound to you?
I see heads nodding, mouths attempting to smile
But actually you don’t approve.

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 Five  69

Isn’t this approach (you ask) – after all these centuries, all
  this investment –
Still rather crude? Maybe even cruel?
You have a point.
While this approach has been effective for a further 12.6
  per cent
We are still left with a group representing 10.1 per cent of
  all humans
Who are hardened pessimists.
Isn’t it time for another (perhaps the final, perfect)
  systems upgrade?
To this end
I have assembled a team of leading geneticists who’ve
  been working
Night and day
And now we are (I’m confident) only months away
From a momentous breakthrough:
We’ve isolated the optimism gene
And once we know how to activate it
We can be certain that it’s present in every new born child.
But such research is – as I’m sure you’re aware –
Expensive.
Which is why I stand before you today
Surrounded by these mementoes of my first pupil
Asking you
To give generously,
Knowing that with your money
We can ensure
That the human race lives happily for ever more.
Nurse (sings)  If only man could be
 An optimist genetically
Happiness can be designed
Everyone will soon be fine
For this is the best
The best of all possible worlds.
Pangloss  And now to our media hub, where the branding
team will outline the optimism gene launch plan.

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 70  Candide

Everyone else leaves but Sarah holds Pangloss back.

Sarah  Doctor Pangloss
I’m the sole inheritor of a global waste disposal
 consultancy
The author of a m­ ulti-­million selling book
And the writer of several screenplays
I’d be prepared to make
A vast donation if I could see Candide.
Pangloss  It’s not possible to see Candide.
Sarah  No? I have here a sworn affidavit
By a former employee of the Institute
In which she states that Candide –
Pangloss  Only I have access to Candide.
Sarah  Ten million pounds for a glimpse of him.
Pangloss  Ten million?
Sarah  I’ll have my banker transfer the funds within the
hour.
Pangloss  This must be for the best.
Candide is revealed in a glass casket.
Sarah  He’s beautiful. Is he dead?
Pangloss  Asleep.
One day, three hundred and ninety-six years ago (just as I
  was being committed to a debtors’ jail
Following an unfortunate misunderstanding
In a brothel in Cadiz)
Candide appeared
On a flying sheep
His pockets filled with gold.
He passed, soon after, into this deep slumber
(No doubt due to the high altitudes he’d experienced)
And has never woken.
Sarah  Leave me alone with him. Go.

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 Five  71

Exit Pangloss.
Sarah  Candide. Candide!
Candide  ‘Although I am a god, I cannot prevent my own
son Sarpedon from dying. He was born at the moment
he had to be born. Just as his body could not be buried
anywhere but Lycia. His corpse will fertilise vegetables
which will eaten by and change the atoms of the Lycians.
Serpedon’s heirs will establish a new order: peace with
Lycia.’
Sarah releases Candide.
Sarah  Candide!
There are so many little people –
More and more of them every day –
Who don’t know real suffering
Whereas you, me, we’re
Great important full human beings.
But now Pangloss is planning
To wipe away all future suffering
One gene
And –
Candide  Dear lady
You should take no pride in suffering.
Sleeping here for centuries
I’ve come to realise that
Suffering occurs – yes –
(Even an animal feels pain)
But what makes our species superior? This:
Our will, belief
That the world is made for our happiness
And that everything will turn out for the best.
Sarah  Candide
You’ve slept
For centuries. Wake up – the world has changed.
Individuals who think differently are being swept aside
Everyone is now part of the same human tide toward

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 72  Candide

Cleaner, safer, saner, wiser,

Just, fair . . .
Be a teacher! – spread the sanity.
Be an ­aid-­worker! – feed the world.
Write a story with a happy ending!
And once every single womb is
Growing programmed babies
Then it’s optimism for ever.
What Pangloss is planning is genocide.
No ­one left to see
What the worst possible outcome
Of any action might be.
No ­one left to say:
Let’s consider the possibility
That this new idea, invention, political movement
Will end in pain and misery.
No one left to wonder:
Is life ultimately pointless?
Don’t you want – if only for variety –
Some of the human race to think like me?
I thought you’d be my ally.
But now I see
The only choice I have is this.
She prepares to kill herself.
Candide  What? You chastise Pangloss for his wish to
  change our natures
And now you would commit the most unnatural act of all
Self-slaughter?
We were born therefore we were meant to live.
There is a reason for our being:
To look about us and see
That in all things there is a possible perfectibility.
Time and time again
We go into the world
And are tested and – yes – almost broken
But we survive
We are alive not only for ourselves

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 Five  73

But for all mankind

Each of us
Thinking, working, struggling to make a better life for all
This is progress
And it is beautiful.
Deny Optimism – what is left?
Void. Chaos. Annihilation.
Trust me please that our world is getting better and that
With the shared invention of our minds and hearts
We shall – I’m sure of it – make the perfect world at last.
Enter Pangloss.
Pangloss  Candide! You live!
I am a man of science
For everything a reason, cause and effect
But this is to me, in this moment,
A miracle.
Candide  My wise teacher. What news of Cunegonde?
Pangloss  I have heard nothing of Cunegonde for
centuries.
Candide  Somewhere in the world she’s waiting.
I’ll leave immediately.
Pangloss  Stay.
You are the nerves, the brain, the heart
Of the Pangloss Institute.
You must be present
When we throw the switch
On the first foetus.
You must share the glory
Of the optimism gene,
The power, the profit.
Candide  Pangloss: I will.
Enter Nurse.
Nurse  Cunegonde is here.
Several patients and staff rush in to witness the scene.

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 74  Candide

Enter Cunegonde. She is four hundred years old.

Cunegonde  My love.
Candide  This is a trick.
This woman is a
Geriatric.
This cannot possibly be Cunegonde.
Pangloss  Place reason before emotion.
Study the object before you without prejudice.
Look at the eyes.
Beneath the liver spots
Crooked legs
See
The same cluster of atoms
The same person
Who asked you
Westphalia
Centuries ago
‘Pick up my handkerchief’.
Candide  How could she become so –?
Cunegonde  Candide: Address your question to me.
Candide  What cause in this best of all possible worlds
Cunegonde –
Yes I believe it is you –
Could lead to such an effect?
Cunegonde  Living.
Candide  Horrible.
Cunegonde  Perhaps the strange thing is my love not that
  I’ve aged
But that you – beautiful youth – have remained
Exactly as you are.
My flame
Burns as it did when you put your tongue inside me
Westphalia March the 22nd 1755.
Kiss me Candide.

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 Five  75

Candide  I can’t.
Cunegonde  You must.
I ’ve lived all this time
Optimism as my guide
The only thing that –
Candide  How can this be for the best?
Cunegonde  Listen:
I cried for bread and liberty
The King fled
We stormed the Bastille
Dance for the Republic
Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!
Kiss me.
I called for my brother’s execution
I dropped the guillotine
Felt the blood on my lip
Tasted good
Ever optimistic
One day Candide will kiss me.
Kiss me.
Turned on every comrade I ever had
Order must be restored
(For Candide’s kiss)
I kept both sides warm between my legs
Gave birth a hundred and forty-three times
Miscarried many more
(Look what it’s done to my body)
Kiss me
Fed half my boys to the war machine
Most of the girls – a life of quiet servitude
One day Candide will kiss me
Kiss me
Put up barricades
Seige
Optimism comrades
Woman put down your broom! Listen:

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 76  Candide

Optimism
(I’m waiting for Candide’s kiss)
Kiss me
I worked without light
Factory
Mine
Rowing the ship of my own slavery
We sang songs
Optimism
Optimism
Optimism
Kiss me
I set out around the globe
Classify every plant, species, being
A great catalogue
Killed much of what I found
And still the catalogue awaits completion.
My lover was a dictator
Genocide designer
I stood beside him
(One day Candide will kiss me)
Kiss me
Show trial
I threw myself in the river
The books in my pocket
Should have been enough
Carry me to death
The Party fished me out
Optimism
Optimism
Optimism
One day Candide will kiss me.
Kiss me.
Retina torn
Flash
Atom bomb
I saw the bright side:
Somewhere Candide is waiting to kiss me.

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 Five  77

Washed away: tsunami

Spilt oil – black heavy –
Filled my lungs
Wash it out I cried out
I must be clean
Clean for Candide’s kiss.
Kiss me.
I stood in a room and saw a daughter shoot her family
 dead.
I stood in a room and saw my daughter shoot her family
 dead.
I stood in a room: I shot my grandfather, mother, father,
  brother, boyfriend, so many others – dead.
I saw the clip a million times:
Girl shoots room of people dead
I sold the rights in every platform
All for the kiss of Candide
Kiss me
Kiss me
Kiss me
Every utopia
Won with butchery
Descended into slaughter.
The ozone’s so thin now
The ice caps melted
More sea than I ever saw
(And we saw so much sea, Candide)
Humanity mostly washed away
The rest: panic, wars
Still believe:
Everything is for the best
The best of all possible worlds
One day – today – I’ll be kissed by Candide.
I’ve had AIDS and plague
Every bone in my body hurts
But – chin up –
I’m ready for the kiss of Candide.

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 78  Candide

Candide  A kiss? You disgust me. Honouring a promise.

Nothing more.
Cunegonde  After all I’ve seen that sounds like happiness.
Candide  Things could be so much better.
Cunegonde  They couldn’t. Believe me.
Candide  And so I –
He kisses Cunegonde.
All (sing)  Everything is for the best
  In the best of all possible worlds.
Pangloss  A marriage. A feast. A dance. A happy ending.
Exit all except:
Sarah  François-Marie Arouet – pen name Voltaire:
  ‘Optimism – a system of cruelty with a comforting name.’
She commits suicide.

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 D RAMA O NLI NE

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to study drama
From curriculum classics
to contemporary writing
Accompanied by
theory and practice

Discover. Read.
Study. Perform.
Find out more:
www.dramaonlinelibrary.com
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 Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Modern Plays
include work by

Bola Agbaje Robert Holman

Edward Albee Caroline Horton
Davey Anderson Terry Johnson
Jean Anouilh Sarah Kane
John Arden Barrie Keeffe
Peter Barnes Doug Lucie
Sebastian Barry Anders Lustgarten
Alistair Beaton David Mamet
Brendan Behan Patrick Marber
Edward Bond Martin McDonagh
William Boyd Arthur Miller
Bertolt Brecht D. C. Moore
Howard Brenton Tom Murphy
Amelia Bullmore Phyllis Nagy
Anthony Burgess Anthony Neilson
Leo Butler Peter Nichols
Jim Cartwright Joe Orton
Lolita Chakrabarti Joe Penhall
Caryl Churchill Luigi Pirandello
Lucinda Coxon Stephen Poliakoff
Curious Directive Lucy Prebble
Nick Darke Peter Quilter
Shelagh Delaney Mark Ravenhill
Ishy Din Philip Ridley
Claire Dowie Willy Russell
David Edgar Jean-Paul Sartre
David Eldridge Sam Shepard
Dario Fo Martin Sherman
Michael Frayn Wole Soyinka
John Godber Simon Stephens
Paul Godfrey Peter Straughan
James Graham Kate Tempest
David Greig Theatre Workshop
John Guare Judy Upton
Mark Haddon Timberlake Wertenbaker
Peter Handke Roy Williams
David Harrower Snoo Wilson
Jonathan Harvey Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
Iain Heggie Benjamin Zephaniah

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of Bloomsbury Methuen Drama
titles write to:

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Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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or you can visit our website at:

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