{"product_id":"the-retreat-from-moscow-isbn-9781400077632","title":"The Retreat from Moscow","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe celebrated author of \u003ci\u003eShadowlands \u003c\/i\u003etells the powerful story of a husband who decides to be truthful in his marriage, and of the wife and son whose lives will never be the same again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A finely perceptive, eloquently tender and exquisite new play.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eHow well do we know the people we marry? Is it wrong to decide it’s time to be honest?   Is love enough to save a family? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Edward and Alice have been married for thirty-three years. He is   a teacher at a boys school, perfectly at home with his daily crossword and lately   engrossed in reading about Napoleon’s costly invasion of Moscow. She is an observant   Catholic, exacting and opinionated, and has been collecting poems about lost love   for a new anthology. Jamie, their diffident thirty-two year old son, is visiting   for the weekend when Edward announces he has met another woman. With the coiled intensity   of Tom Stoppard’s \u003ci\u003eThe Real Thing \u003c\/i\u003eand the embracing empathy of Edward Albee’s best   family dramas, \u003ci\u003eThe Retreat from Moscow \u003c\/i\u003eshines a breathtakingly natural light on the   fallout of a shattered marriage.“A finely perceptive, eloquently tender and exquisite new play.” —\u003ci\u003eNew   York\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Riveting.... Subtle and powerful, [with] marvelous emotional complexity.”   —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“A tense family drama.... Spare, emotionally brutal.”   —\u003ci\u003eTime Out New York\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“A truly devastating piece of theater.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Daily News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“The best new play in twenty years.... This perfectly written masterwork shimmers   with delicacy and precision.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Journal News\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eWILLIAM NICHOLSON is the author of the play \u003ci\u003eShadowlands, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich was made into a film   starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. He received an Academy Award nomination   for his screenplay for \u003ci\u003eShadowlands\u003c\/i\u003e and has written numerous other screenplays as   well as a forthcoming novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Society of Others, \u003c\/i\u003eand a trilogy of children’s fantasy   adventure novels. He lives in London.ACT ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe stage in darkness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo armchairs. A table with three upright chairs. A sink, cooker,  fridge, and cupboard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree people sit motionless in the darkness. edward, a schoolteacher in  his late fifties, in one armchair. His wife, alice, about the same age,  in the other. Their son, jamie, in his early thirties, at the table.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll three actors remain onstage throughout. When one character is no  longer present in a scene, he becomes still, and the lights go down on  him. The audience can still see him, but the other characters cannot.  The shadowed actor sits or stands, suspended in time, and does not  react to what takes place around him, until the lights return him to  the action.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLights come up on\u003c\/i\u003e EDWARD.\u003ci\u003e He reads from a book.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: \"As men dropped in the intense cold, their bodies were stripped  of clothing by their own comrades, and left naked in the snow, still  alive.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eLights come up on \u003c\/i\u003eJAMIE, \u003ci\u003esipping at a mug of coffee, listening\u003c\/i\u003e.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Others, having lost or burned their shoes, were marching with bare  feet and legs. The frozen skin and muscles were exfoliating themselves,  like successive layers of wax statues. The bones were exposed, but  being frozen, were completely insensitive to pain. Some officers,  suffering from diarrhoea, found themselves unable to do their trousers  up. I myself helped one of these unfortunates to put his  asterisk-asterisk-asterisk back, and button himself up. He was crying  like a child.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: I wonder what word he used.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Who knows? Something French.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Yes. I suppose it would be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: A surprisingly large number of the officers kept diaries. Over  a hundred and fifty have survived. Remarkable, really, given the  conditions on the retreat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: How many died?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Napoleon marched four hundred fifty thousand men across the  Niemen. Less than twenty thousand came back. How was the drive down?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ejamie: Not bad. I left just after five.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eBoth check their watches, making the same movement.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: An hour and three-quarters. I wouldn't have thought there was  that much traffic on a Saturday evening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: It took twenty minutes just getting through Tunbridge Wells.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Tunbridge Wells is slow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: I think I might have a bath.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Yes. Do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Wash off the London grime.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eHe rises, and takes his coffee mug to the sink.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo everything's alright, then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Much as ever. And you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Busy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Let's see if we can find a moment. Before you go back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(EDWARD\u003ci\u003e returns to his book. Lights go down on him.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eLights come up on\u003c\/i\u003e ALICE. JAMIE \u003ci\u003ewalks across to stand behind her chair.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: It seems to me as I grow older that people become ruder. They  say nobody's taught manners any more, but I don't think it's that. I  think middle-aged women have become invisible. You have to be young, or  rich, or beautiful, to be noticed at all. I don't quite know how to  cope with it, except by getting angry, which I do more or less all the  time these days. I've been having trouble with my printer. Did I tell  you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: No. What's the problem?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I dropped it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Ah. They don't like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: \u003ci\u003e\"Sudden and swift and light as that\u003cbr\u003eThe ties gave\u003cbr\u003eAnd he learned of finalities\u003cbr\u003eBesides the grave.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Auden?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Robert Frost. A strange little poem called \"The Impulse.\" I'm  putting it in my anthology under Lost Love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: How's the anthology coming along?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Well, it isn't, really, until I can get the printer fixed. Did  you come down alone?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Yes. Have you got someone to look at it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Darling, there isn't anyone. People don't fix things any more,  they throw them away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI rang every shop in the Yellow Pages, but all they wanted to do was  sell me a new one. I found a man at last who said, rather grudgingly,  \"Bring it in,\" so I drove all the way to this hellish industrial  estate, where there was this hellish computer warehouse, and I lugged  the damned machine in through one of those ferocious doors that try to  crush you, and there was one little man, all alone in this vast space,  sitting at a keyboard, going tick-tick-tick. No attempt to help me as I  struggled in. Not a word. Not a look. After a while I said, \"I'm a  customer. Aren't you supposed to serve me?\" He looked up and said,  \"Well?\" Just, \"Well?\" I said, \"My printer's not working.\" I showed him  the page I'd brought in to explain the problem. I'd been trying to  print out a Browning poem, the one that ends\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Just when I seem about to learn\u003cbr\u003eWhere is the thread, now off again,\u003cbr\u003eThe old trick only I discern\u003cbr\u003eInfinite passion, and the pain\u003cbr\u003eOf finite hearts that yearn.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's going into Lost Love, too. It's turning out to be by far the  largest section in the anthology. Anyway, the printer had left off the  first two words or so of every line, which made the poem rather modern,  but not as good. The man in the warehouse said, \"That's not a printer  problem. The printer's fine. It's what you're doing that's wrong.  You're the problem.\" He actually said it, in those very words. \"You're  the problem.\" \"How do you know?\" I said. \"You haven't looked at the  printer. You haven't even switched it on.\" \"I know,\" he said, \"because  if a printer prints wrong, it's not the printer's fault.\" \"Are you the  printer's mother?\" I asked him. \"Are you telling me that printers never  go wrong?\" \"I'm telling you,\" he said, \"that if the printer's printing,  then the printer's fine.\" \"But it's not fine,\" I said. \"It's not  printing right. Well, actually, it is printing right, but it's not  printing left.\" He didn't have an answer to that. He went back to going  tick-tick-tick. \"Excuse me,\" I said. \"I'm not finished. I want you to  look at my printer.\" He paid me no attention whatsoever. So I picked up  my printer, to take it over to where he sat, and I dropped it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt made a kind of tinkling noise. He looked up when he heard that, and  smiled a cruel little smile, and said, \"Would you like me to sell you a  new printer?\" I was so angry I wanted to hit him. So I said to him,  \"You're the kind of man who doesn't love anybody and nobody loves you.  You've got no friends, and your wife hates you, and your children never  talk to you.\" He looked quite surprised for a moment or two. Then he  said, \"Do you know me from somewhere?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Oh, Ma.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What do you think I should do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Buy another printer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I feel such a fool.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Is it alright if I have a bath?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Yes, of course, darling. When are you going back?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: After lunch tomorrow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Thank you for coming. I know how busy you are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Don't be silly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eLights fade on \u003c\/i\u003eJAMIE, \u003ci\u003eand come up on \u003c\/i\u003eEDWARD. \u003ci\u003eHe looks up from his book.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: They found Moscow empty, so they plundered it, which meant they  were followed on the retreat by an enormous baggage train. This in turn  was followed by raiding parties of Cossacks. When men were wounded, or  frostbitten, and could no longer walk, orders were given to carry them  on the baggage wagons. This slowed the wagons down, of course, and  reduced the chances that the baggage train would make it to Smolensk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo the wagon-drivers looked out for especially rutted ground, and then  drove fast over it, so that the wounded would be jolted off the wagons,  without anyone noticing. Once left behind on the road, they froze to  death. This was understood to be an accident. It was an unspoken  conspiracy, by the strong, against the weak. Nobody looked back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: It's horrible, Edward. Why do you go on reading it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: It is horrible. But it's curiously compelling, too. I suppose  because it exposes the way human beings behave in extremis. When it's a  matter of survival, people show no mercy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What utter rot. History is full of people laying down their  lives for others. What about Jesus Christ?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Oh, well. Jesus Christ.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Don't just sit there and say, \"Oh well, Jesus Christ.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Yes, but he was God. I mean, he knew he'd rise again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What difference does that make?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Well, he would have known it wasn't the end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: So you think that made it easy for him?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: No, not quite that\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You try being crucified. See how you like it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Well, of course, I wouldn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Then stop talking such rot. Honestly, Edward, I hope you don't  talk rot like that in your Religious Studies classes. Has Jamie said  anything to you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: About what?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: About anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: He told me how long it had taken him to drive down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: He can't have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Why not?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Because it's such a stupid and pointless thing to talk about.  Why would he say anything so ridiculously dull?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I asked him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You asked him?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You asked him how long it had taken him to drive down here?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Something like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Why? Do you care?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: People have conversations like that. It has its uses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Why? What uses?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Oh, I don't know. Settling down. That sort of thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Edward, Jamie is your son. Your only child. You see him maybe  once every three months. And all you can think of to say to him is,  \"How long did you take to drive down?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: He's only just got here. As you say, we haven't seen him for  some time. You have to start somewhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Why not ask him if he's got a girlfriend? When's he going to get  married? What's happening about grandchildren?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I can't ask him that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: All you have to do is give him an opening, and if he's got  something to say, he'll say it. He's thirty-two, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Yes. I know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eHe puts a bookmark in his book, puts it down, and rises.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCup of tea?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: He's mentioned a girl called Carrie a couple of times. I wonder  what happened to her?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: He's never mentioned her to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I can't help worrying about him. Do you think he's happy? He  used to laugh so much when he was little, and now he doesn't laugh,  really. I think living alone is bad for people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I'm not sure that I agree. I think he's happy in that flat of  his.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Do you? All on his own?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Well, there's that, of course. But he has it the way he wants  it. No washing up to speak of. You use a plate, wash it, and there it  is, ready to use again. You don't run out of milk, because you're the  only one drinking it, so you know just how much there is left in the  fridge. You can leave your book open on the table, and never lose your  place. Just little things, I know, but they have their value.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You sound as if you envy him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Perhaps a part of me does.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Well, it's a part of you you have to fight. It's not good for  anyone, hiding in a hole and having everything be always the same.  That's why you need me. Think what you would have missed if it wasn't  for me. You'd never have gone to India, for a start.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: That's true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You know what we should do? We should go back to India for our  golden wedding. I know it's not for ages. We could save up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: We'd be far too old. I'd be seventy-five.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: That's nothing. They have astronauts older than that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I'll make us some tea, then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eHe goes to make tea. \u003c\/i\u003eALICE \u003ci\u003erises, and takes up Edward's book. She leafs through it without reading it.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Have you done anything about Thursday?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: What about Thursday?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You've forgotten, haven't you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Forgotten what?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: It's our anniversary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Oh. Right. No, I hadn't forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You haven't said anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Well, it isn't Thursday yet. It's only Saturday. Don't lose my place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: So you have something in mind?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: What do you mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Will we go out for dinner?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: If that's what you want.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: It isn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: It isn't?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Alright, then. We won't go out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(ALICE \u003ci\u003eopens the book at the bookmark, tilts the book so the bookmark slides to the floor, and closes it again.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Oh, look. I've lost your place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Never mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: No. Mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: It's not important.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What is?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Is something the matter?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What do you think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Well, something seems to be bothering you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: You just don't get it, do you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: No. I don't think I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I say, \"Will we go out for dinner on our anniversary?\" You say,  \"If that's what you want.\" I say, \"It isn't.\" You say, \"Then we won't.\"  But I do want to go out for dinner on our anniversary. Why else do you  think I suggested it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Then why say you don't?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Because I don't want to do it because I want to do it. I want to  do it because you want to do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Oh. Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: So do you want to do it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Yes. Why not?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Then I'd like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eedward: We'll do that, then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(ALICE \u003ci\u003ecloses her eyes and bows her head.\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow was your day?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Like what?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I was only asking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: What were you only asking?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: Your day. How's it gone?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: How am I supposed to answer?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I think that rather depends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: Fine. I'm supposed to say, \"Fine.\" It's not a real question.  It's not about me. I want you to ask about me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(\u003ci\u003eLights come up on\u003c\/i\u003e JAMIE.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: I'm having a bit of trouble with the bath. The water came out  brown at first. I've been trying to empty it, but the water won't go  away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: (\u003ci\u003eTo\u003c\/i\u003e EDWARD) You said you'd deal with that drain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I will. I'll do it in the morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: If you're not going to do something you tell me you're going to  do, could you please tell me you're not going to do it, so I know I  have to do it myself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEDWARD: I'll do it first thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMIE: Actually, it's not a problem, because the brownness is kind of  sinking to the bottom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALICE: I don't know why I even bother asking you.","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301187014885,"sku":"NP9781400077632","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400077632.jpg?v=1767741220","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-retreat-from-moscow-isbn-9781400077632","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}