Cafe Boris - the play

Cast

Dmitri – a customer at Café Boris and ‘narrator’

Boris -  ­proprietor of Café Boris

Olyena – the chef

Sergei – a regular

Igor – a customer

Customers

 

 

Act 1

 

Scene – a busy café. Boris is serving customers. Dmitri enters and Boris greets him with a curt grunt and plonks a coffee on his table, before serving the other customs.

 

Customer A hands Boris a 100 Hryvnia note.

 

Boris: “Where would I get change for a 100 Hryvnia note, what do you think I am, a bank?  You come to my café you bring the correct change.”

 

Customer A: “I’m sorry it’s all I have.”

 

Customer B hands Boris a pile of change.

 

Boris:  “What am I supposed to do with all this change? Use it to weigh down the bodies of my worst customers when I throw them in the river?”

 

Customer B: “I’m sorry it’s all I have.”

 

Customer C: “Excuse me, I’ve been waiting half an hour for my food.”

 

Boris:     “What are you English? I thought the English liked to wait.  Like you wait for the next time you win world cup, what is it 50 years?

 

Customer C: I only asked where my food was.

 

Boris:  “Why come here if you want to eat.  There are better cafés in Luhansk, they are all better. Go anywhere, here you have to wait and when you get food it’s terrible.  Almost as bad as English food.”

 

Dmitri:      (to audience) “I know what you’re thinking – how can I understand this play when I don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian? Here at Café Boris we do all we can for our customers, and tonight, for one night only, we will be translating into English.

 

Boris and Customer A repeat what they’ve said more slowly, as if talking to idiots.

Boris: “Where would I get change for a 100 Hryvnia note, what do you think I am, a bank? 

Customer A: “I’m sorry it’s all I have.”

Customer B acts out handing Boris a pile of change, though he’s a bit embarrassed as he’s already given the actual change to him and is only handing over air.

Boris:  “What am I supposed to do with all this change? Use it to weigh down the bodies of my worst customers when I throw them in the river?”

 

Customer B: “I’m sorry it’s all I have.”

 

Customer C: Excuse me, I’ve … (interrupted by Boris)
Boris:            “We don’t need to translate. We were already speaking in English.”

“Customer C:          “Sorry.”

 

Dmitri, (getting up and walking to front of stage).

 

Dmitri: “Café Boris wasn’t always as busy as this. In fact it’s entirely my fault that Café Boris has become the tourist mecca it has. I am by trade a teacher but … hang on.”

 

Walks back to centre stage, coughs loudly and starts speech again.

 

“It wasn’t always like this” (customers hastily begin to leave) “I am by trade a teacher but, bloody amateurs, can’t take their cue, after the fall of communism my school kept running out of the money to pay me. I was eventually forced to leave and sought money or food wherever I could. And so I found myself here, at Café Boris, begging a meal.

 

Scene – café Boris, completely empty of customers

 

Boris:    “Ah, so the world hasn’t ended, I thought I was the only one left alive.”

 

Dmitri: “Business is bad then?”

 

Boris:  “Business? Pah, the rot that is capitalism has taken all my customers away. I blame the communists. And the capitalists. Why does nobody come here, to my lovely café? And now you arrive, all my prayers answered, my own beloved customer.”

 

Dmitri: “I can’t pay, I’m afraid.”    
Boris:  “Then why you come to Café Boris?  To taunt me?  To wallow in the café’s  failure?  To stare at my poverty.  To toy with my corpse, for a corpse I will soon be, without customers I am nothing, a capitalist in a country without capital. Leave me, let me die in peace. If you don‘t pay, there‘s no food.  No food for you, no food for me.  We both die.”

Dmitri: “But I can help you, I’m a writer.  I can write you marketing materials, copy for newspapers, to help you promote your café.”

 

Boris’s face betrays his ignorance of the world of marketing copy and promotion.

 

Dmitri: “Here, try this: ‘Come to Café Boris, it is a welcoming place with warm food and warm company’.”

Boris: “That is no use to me, the papers will charge 50 Hryvnias for a write up like that.  I can’t afford an ’advertising budget’ on that scale.  I am not your McDonalds restaurants. I have no happy-faced clown to greet the children of Luhansk as they flock to my door.”

Dmitri: “There are other ways,” (pause) “A letter, I could write a letter to the Luhansk Tribune saying how wonderful Café Boris is.”

Boris:  “And for that you expect food yes?  And a drink no doubt?”

Dmitri: To audience “The next day I rushed into the café with the paper” (realises he isn’t moving) “oh” (rushes into the café with the paper)

Dmitri: “See, my letter was published. I told you: “Café Boris the best café in Luhansk bar none.”

Boris:  “Well, I hope you’re not expecting more food, you’ve been paid already.”

Dmitri: “I’ll just write another letter, get you in the paper again tomorrow, repeat business.”

Boris:  “What are you a fool? They won’t print the same letter twice, not even if you use another name.  This is over, the letters page is the only free section of the paper, every other page you pay for.”

 

Dmitri: “Not quite. They don’t charge for obituaries. I could write a fictional obituary, and include a reference to the fact that the deceased enjoyed a hearty last meal in Café Boris.”

 

Boris:  “Obituaries you say?  And they are free?  I can do you sausage, potato and cabbage. With a vodka to toast today’s letter?”

As they toast glasses Dmitri scribbles in his notebook. Luckily for the audience to reads out what he is writing.   

Dmitri: “Vladamir Semak, died peacefully in his sleep aged 63, after enjoying a hearty meal at Café Boris.”

Dmitri: (to audience) “Sure enough, the obituary was accepted as genuine and published. I rushed in to the café the next day to show Boris.” (realises he isn’t moving) “Oh” (rushes into café)

Boris reads the paper.

Boris:  “Too old, try a young person next time, a woman.  I don’t want people to think this is an old man’s café.”

Dmitri (to audience) “The next day I came back with another obituary.”

Boris   (reading from paper): “‘Aleksander Maykin, aged 36, died after a fatal injury caused by an eagle dropping a tortoise onto her head. Boris, the proprietor of Café Boris, rushed to her aid, and took her into the café, which sells a range of good quality, reasonable priced refreshments, but it proved too late to save her.’ This I like. It makes me into a hero.”

Dmitri: “Café Boris nearly closed down. The few customers he had were scared off by the death notices. Luckily for me he so enjoyed complaining about the lack of customers that he didn’t notice that he didn’t have any customers.”

Customers begin to enter.

Dmitri: (to customers) “Not yet.”

 

Customers leave.

Dmitri: “And then suddenly customers started arriving.” (beckons customers).

Customers enter.

Customer A: “I’ve come for my last meal.”

Customer B: “I hear this is the best place in Luhansk to die.”

Boris:  “Why are you all coming here, to my little café? Can’t you see I’m busy.”

Dmitri: “Of course, having customers didn’t make Boris happy, but it did give him something new to complain about. And then the feature about the obituaries appeared in the Time Out Guide. ‘Cafe Boris, the restaurant where a customer dies every single day.’  Overnight the Café became a mecca for tourists, and Boris has been complaining ever since.

 

Act 2

(Dmitri sharing a table with Igor, who is flicking through a copy of the Luhansk Ekspress. The rest of the café is full)

Igor:   God, the Luhansk Ekspress is boring.

Dmitri: I don’t understand why you read it every day. You finish it in less than a minute, why do you bother with it at all?

Igor:   It’s the year I spent in England, when I was a student. You wouldn’t believe the headlines and stories in the local paper. The cat that solved a murder, the man who wrote a novel in his shed and the man who pretended to be the pope in order to defraud an elderly catholic woman of her life savings. I just want to find one story like that.

Dmitri: It’s true, you’ll never get those stories in Ukraine. In Ukraine the cat would be shot before he could solve the case, robbers simply hold a gun to old women’s heads, no need for papal costumes and as for sheds, in Ukraine sheds are used for hiding contraband or strangers, for secret trysts, or drinking binges, there is no space in any Luhansk shed for a would-be-novelist.

Igor:   Ten years I’ve been back in Luhansk, and not one story worthy of the Bath and Wells Chronicle. I still remember the headline the day I left: Puddle Splash victim vows revenge.

 

Dmitri: In Ukraine it would read: Puddle splash victim kills six in bloody revenge.

 

(Igor continues to flick through the paper)

Igor:   (clearly shocked) “What the fuck?”

Dmitri: “What is it Igor?”

Igor:   It’s the obituaries. It’s my name.  Here, look. ‘Igor Stodnik, died, aged 43, following a sudden illness.’ It gives my correct address, and details of a funeral service taking place next Tuesday.

Dmitri: What is this a joke? Someone pulling your leg? It wasn’t me if that’s what you’re thinking. Look, here is mine: Vadim Olyanov, died after over-exerting himself in the skateboard park, aged 87, having earlier enjoyed a hearty meal at Café Boris.”

Igor:   I don’t think it’s a joke, Dmitri. There’s no mention of Café Boris, nothing humorous about it. I was reading a piece in the national paper a few days ago, in about a serious of murders where the name and details of the victim had been published in the obituary section of local paper on the day the victim was killed.

 

Dmitri: Do you think they using the paper to inform the hitman about the victim?

Igor:   It can’t be that, Dmitri. The hitman would have to read every local paper in Ukraine, and even then he’d have no way of distinguishing the intended victim from the dead. He’d have to kill a million corpses before he could get his man.

Dmitri: What is it then, a warning? Telling you to get out of town?

 Igor:  I don’t think it’s even that. According to the article they go to a lot of trouble to make sure the victim doesn’t escape. Some of the murders have happened at train and bus stations, as the victim is trying to flee. No, I think it’s just a boast. Gangsters showing off that they’re so confident they

Dmitri: “Who would want to kill you Igor? You’re not at war with the mob.”

Igor:   There are a million ways to offend the mob in modern Ukraine. Perhaps I hit on a girl a gangster had his eye on, or maybe it’s an old rival from school or work was revenging some petty misdeed from twenty years’ previously.

Igor:   “I must flee, I have friends I can visit in Kiev.”

Dmitri: “You can’t just end your life here.”

Igor:   Why not? I don’t have a steady girl.

Dmitri: “What about your job?”

Igor:   “I can ‘hot desk’. They have a Kiev office, most of my work I could do from home anyway, they just like to see my face so they know I’m working.”

Dmitri: “Won’t they mind?”

Igor:   “I’ll say I have to look after my sick mother. Or sister, I think I went to my mother’s funeral last year.”

Dmitri: “You think? You don’t remember.”

Igor:   I needed two days off. It was either my mother or my father. Anyway, they can’t replace me easily, I’m the only guy that knows half the packages they use.”

Dmitri: “It’s no small thing, abandoning your life and starting again.”

Igor:   “It is simply what I must do. It is called staying alive, Dmitri. Like the Bee Gees song.”

Dmitri: “The Bee Gees sang about fleeing to Kiev to avoid assassination? I always wonder what that song meant. When would you leave?”

Igor:   “Today. As soon as I can. I daren’t go home, there might be an assassin waiting for me in my flat. The trouble is how will I get there? What if they’ve posted people at the train station and airport.”

Dmitri: “Well, if you’re serious about leaving I may be able to help you to get to Kiev.”

Igor:   You can?

 

Dmitri: See that couple in the corner? I was talking to them yesterday, they’re tourists, travelling across the country, and they’re driving to Kiev later today.

 

Igor:   ““That is kind, so very kind,”   “But I have a further favour to ask. You see I need to retrieve my passport and some money from my flat, but I am afraid to go there, in case the hitman is waiting.”

 

Dmitri: Oh no, Igor. I’m not taking a bullet on your behalf.

Igor:   You don’t have to take a bullet. Pretend to be my landlord, knock on the door, call out, let yourself in. The gunman will hide, if he is even there. You take the money and passport from the drawer under the television and leave. It will take a minute.

Dmitri: Oh what the hell. I need a bit of adventure in my life.

Igor:   Do you know where I live? 67 Radyanska Street.  Here, let me draw you a map. (draws map) I will meet you back here, yes.

 

xxx

(Scene change. The café is cleared away, leaving Dmitri alone on an empty, blackened stage.)

Dmitri: The lights must have gone. I can hardly see the stair to Igor’s flat. I think it must be this one, I can’t see the number. (strikes match) Yes, number 67. Well, here goes. (Knocks heavily on door)  “Igor, it is me, your landlord. I have come for the rent.”   

Dmitri (jangles keys loudly as he opens the door) “It is only me Igor just come for my rent.”

Dmitri: (to audience) “There is nobody here. Igor is worrying about nothing. Assassins advertising their murders in the paper, what nonsense. Why did I listen to him. Oh well, I will get him his passport and money.”

Sfx: A very loud fart.

Dmitri: “I know you’re here Igor, I recognise your farts anywhere. Why are you hiding? Is it a girl? Don’t mind me Igor, you pay your rent you can bring home who you like. I’ll help myself to the money – is it in the usual place?”

Dmitri takes money and passport from drawer.

 

Dmitri: “I am going now, you can open the door and let the fart out, it must be getting unpleasant in there.”

Dmitri: (To audience) “And so I returned to the café, gave Igor his money and passport and introduced him to the tourist couple.  There was much laughter to be had at the tale of the farting hitman, but it was soon time to say goodbye.

Dmitri: (to Igor) “Good luck Igor, may all your assassins fart loudly enough to warn you of their approach.”

Igor:   “Farewell Dmitr. Thanks for your help, I will call you from Kiev. You must come and visit. Keep staying alive. (exit to theme of Staying Alive).”

Act 3

Scene – Café Boris is full of customers. Dmitri is seated at a table.

Customer A (an American tourist with camera) is talking to Boris.

Customer A: “Just one snap sir, so that we can show our friends we’ve met the famous Boris.”

 

Boris:  “What is ‘snapped’, that is broken isn’t it? I don’t want to broken by you, not for your friends, not for nobody. Now this man, this is Dmitri, this is the man that writes the obituaries, the writer, the creative, this man you should be ‘snapped’ with, he is the genius, I am just the poor café owner who is besieged by unwanted tourists because of the things this man writes.”

Dmitri obliges the Americans by posing with various members of the family.  Humorous poses can be adopted if the director is so inclined. When he finishes with the Americans, Boris hands him a coffee and a letter.

Boris:  “Here, this came for you.”

Dmtri: (holds up letter) “What’s this?” “It’s addressed to you, ‘Boris’, ‘Care of Café Boris’, this isn’t for me.”

Boris:  “It is from England that means it is from a tourist, which means it is for you. It is you who brings these tourists here, I don’t ask you to, I hate tourists.”

Dmitri reads the letter.

Dmitri: (addressing whole café) am sorry to announce, Café Boris has just had its first genuine death. This is from an English woman, who writes to say that her husband, Eric Ottershaw, died at their hotel just an hour after enjoying a hearty meal at Café Boris.”

Dmitri: “It goes on to say how glad Eric was to have met the famous Boris before he died and how their visit to the café was the highlight of their holiday. ‘It is far better than anywhere else we visited, even Moscow’.”

This comment is greeted with a cheer by the customers.

Dmitri: “I shall of course be submitting Eric Ottershaw’s obituary to the Ekspres tomorrow, and will send his widow a copy.”

Boris: “Tomorrow shall be Eric Otter’s day of mourning. We shall have a wake here, in the café       where he nearly died. It is what his wife would want.”

Dmitri reads through the letter again.

Dmitri: “She doesn’t say that’s what she wants.”

Boris:  “Ah, women, you have to guess what they want, they never say in words. But she writes, she tells me of the sad loss, of her love of the café, of course she wants a wake. She would want me to charge, also, of course, 50 Hyrvnias per person to attend.

Dmitri: “Charge? 50 Hryvnias to attend a wake?
Boris:  “It is a western thing, they pay to come to funerals, it is the most fun they have in the        west. It is what Eric would have wanted.”

Dmitri: “Who would pay that much money to attend a wake?

Customers form a queue in front of Boris.

Customer A: “I would like to buy two tickets for the wake please.”

Customer B: And four tickets for me.

Customer C:  Is it okay if tweet about the wake. Only a coachload of friends are visiting tomorrow and this is exactly the sort of thing they’d like. Two tickets for me please.

Oleyna: (entering) “There is no food in the kitchen. You organise a wake and don’t bother to think how it will be catered for.

Boris:  “Sergei – you know how to get things. If I give you money can you get the food and drink we will need. Oleyna will tell you what we need.

Sergei:  “I am a busy man, Boris. Not an errand boy.”

Boris:  Here, there are 400 Hryvnias, Take 20 Hryvnias for yourself, provided you get a good price for the food. I’m not paying you twice.

Sergei: “For you Boris I will get the best price in town. I will haggle, like a businessman….”

Dmitri: In no time at all it was the next day and the café was crowded with tourists and locals attending the wake. 

Extras work really hard to make the café seem as crowded as possible, a large crowd.

Boris:  “Let me propose a toast. To the first genuine victim of Café Boris. To Eric Ottershaw.”

Crowd: (raising their glasses) “To Eric Ottershaw.”

Boris:  (to audience) “You see, in Café Boris every customer is loved and cherished, even the tourists (spits slightly on the word tourists). “Which is why you are all welcome, please come to Luhansk. Come and join us for a drink . And if the worst happens and you die of food poisoning, or are killed by a plummeting tortoise, at least be glad that you will make the papers.”