The Reflectionist by Martin Frith
ACT ONE
Scene 1
At rise ...
TOM is sat on a chair behind the desk in his sparsely furnished
office, pen in hand reviewing some papers and making occasional
annotations. He is in his late twenties and is dressed in what is
probably termed business casual, smart trousers and shirt but no
jacket or tie. The only other items on the desk are what appears to
be an appointment book, open, a mobile phone and a laptop. Behind the
desk is a rather large mirror, the desk and the mirror are aligned
with the door opposite. Across the table is a second chair. The
room also contains two armchairs with a coffee table between them,
behind which is a sideboard with tea / coffee making facilities and
water. Above the sideboard is a picture of Socrates. Apart from the
door which faces the desk and the window which provides a source of
natural light there is little else in the room apart from a strange
handle fixed to the wall next to the entrance door. There is also a
coat stand between the desk and the window, with a solitary coat hung
up. The room is decorated in neutral colours and its Spartan feel and
mid to low range furniture is suggestive of an office of a business
which is not massively successful. It is still daylight outside,
however dusk is near and there is the sound of rain.
TOM I do hope she finds it alright, it's not the evening to be
hunting high and low for an out of the way place like this. I did say
the door next to the chemists didn't I? I really ought to get a
bigger sign. Ah…
(Footsteps can be heard approaching up stairs outside the door).
TOM Perhaps I needn't have worried.
(Knock at the door)
TOM Come in, come in, it's open.
(TOM gets up from his chair and moves towards the door as ISABELLA
enters. ISABELLA is a similar age to Tom and is wearing a rather wet
raincoat and carrying an umbrella in one hand and handbag in the
other).
ISABELLA Thank you (continues to move forward to shake TOM's hand),
(pronouncing the t in Mot) Mr Mot?, I'm Isabella, we spoke on the
phone. It was good of you to see me at such short notice.
TOM Not a problem and do call me Tom. Here, let me take your coat
(ISABELLA hands TOM her umbrella and then her coat. Like Tom she is
smartly dressed, business casual). Did you manage to find it ok? (TOM
moves to hang the coat up and put the umbrella by the coat stand).
ISABELLA I found it first time, even without my sat nav. My boss
gave it to me, but I always forget to take it. I think it's a sub
conscious thing, I've always hated back seat drivers and with one of
those it feels as though there is one with you all the time.
TOM (turning back round from the coat stand). I know what you mean
and heaven forbid if you disobey it. You think it sounds annoyed that
you've taken another way, or had an independent thought, even though
it can't do. But it comes across as this controlled aggression,
that makes me start panicking and doubting myself.
ISABELLA It's anger with me, I'm afraid. I just want to punch it. I
wonder how many instances of road rage they've caused?
TOM Lord knows. (TOM jokingly) But how many marriages they have
saved? No doubt somebody will do some inane research into it one day
to come up with their net worth. Do take a seat (gestures to the
armchairs). Tea, coffee?
ISABELLA Just water please, if you have some (moves to sit down).
TOM (going to the sideboard) I'd have thought you would have had
enough of that for one day, still or sparkling? (Pours a hot drink
from the thermos jug).
ISABELLA (slight laugh). Sparkling please. Did I get your name right
when I came in? (Pronouncing the t again) It is Mot isn't it?
TOM (coming to sit in the other armchair and putting the drinks on the
table). Actually its (not pronouncing the T) Mot.
ISABELLA Oh, sorry, it's unusual as a name. I guess it is like the
French for word.
TOM To tell you the truth it is exactly that. I wasn't born with it,
when I started the business I wanted something that stood out a bit
more than Tom Ditchwater, so I changed it. I like words, playing
around with them, rolling them about and seeing what associations and
meanings come out. A predilection for pretension and puns you might
say. But nothing too fancy mind or I get into trouble for getting the
meanings wrong and using words out of context. So it is a little joke
with myself really. That and my nickname at school was Tommo and
I'm sure you will have twigged that it works well for the business.
ISABELLA (TOM takes sip of coffee as she speaks). Ah, the business.
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. My editor heard about you
when he was at a business brunch with Jay Webster and thought you were
just the thing our readers would be interested in at Business Futures
Magazine.
TOM Jay, yes I've known him a while now. It was two years ago when
we first met, he'd just taken over his dad's cafe. A poisoned
chalice really, good location, established, but declining clientele
and not a single new idea served up on the menu in a good 35 years.
It served his old man well, but the clock was running down and Jay
knew it. He just struggled with putting the pieces together in his
head of what he needed to do, which is where I came in. He was my
first client.
ISABELLA (reaching into her bag to pull out her notepad). Do you mind
if I start to take notes? Your role in the Webster story and others
like it was the angle that I was considering developing. Success
isn't only a good story for our readers, it gives them hope, belief
to show what they can achieve and it is good publicity for you as
well.
TOM (taking another sip) Not at all and Jay certainly is a success
story. I think he is up for the Yorkshire and North East Entrepreneur
of the Year Award next month. Yes, he certainly turned things round.
From a moribund cafe straight out of Last of the Summer Wine to the in
place to go for young professionals and yummy mummies. The best
coffees and cakes this side of the Pennines and cafes in a dozen
towns. He told me he had been so successful that one of the big
chains had withdrawn a planning application in one market town as his
customer base is becoming so loyal that they didn't want to risk the
investment.
ISABELLA And you played a part of in all this.
TOM Its kind of you to say so, but if I did it was only a small part.
Jay's success is down to himself. He had the ideas, he knew, at
least after a while, what to do with them and it is him who has worked
his arse off to get to where he is now. The credit is all his.
ISABELLA I'm sure you are just being modest. Maybe it would be
easier to start from the beginning then and we build up to how you
work with your clients. I think that would help me understand better
what exactly it is you do.
TOM You mean a potted life story?
ISABELLA Yes, I think so. But concentrating on how you got here, how
your business came into being and what your plans are for it. It is
business futures that we are all interested in after all.
TOM Well ok. But I'll warn you my life story would be as dull as
Ditchwater, so to speak.
ISABELLA (ISABELLA slight laugh) I hope you won't use that as
the title to your autobiography should you ever write one.
TOM (Wry laugh) No, but I'm sure it will be full of bon mots (Wry
laugh from ISABELLA). To be truthful it is my clients that do all the
work for me, I'm not really important in my own right. In my
dealings with them I see myself as being no more alive as that mirror
over there (TOM points to the mirror behind the desk).
ISABELLA And you use the mirror as your example because that is linked
to what you do? (ISABELLA picking up a card from her notepad and
reading it) It says on the card that my editor gave me that you are
Tom Mot, Reflectionist, "Business solutions from within". What
does that mean?
TOM The "from within" means from within themselves, I just help
them find the answers they already know.
(TOM gets up and moves to in front of the desk, looking into the
mirror at Isabella).
TOM If you look up the word reflection in the Oxford English
Dictionary it will give a definition of it being to throw back heat,
light or sound without absorbing it. For a shiny surface it will say
to show an image of and it will give a second meaning of to embody or
represent in a faithful or an appropriate way. Then you've got to
reflect upon, which obviously means to think deeply or carefully
about.
ISABELLA So you are helping your clients to think.
TOM Indeed, but from my perspective I try to play a passive part in
this. I don't absorb their ideas or thoughts, merely reflect them
back to them almost as if they were stood here looking into this
mirror like I am and talking to themselves. It comes from the French
and Latin you know, the verb to reflect. Re obviously means back, and
flectere is to bend. So a mirror bends light back to give an image of
yourself.
ISABELLA Ok, I can see that
TOM But it isn't always as simple as that, otherwise nobody would
need the services of a reflectionist, they would just gaze into
mirrors. Or better still and less narcissistic, would be able to cope
with their own thoughts. Sometimes it is the bending that is the key.
ISABELLA The bending?
TOM (TOM turns to face Isabella) Yes, the bending. Did you used to go
to fairgrounds when you were a kid?
ISABELLA Yes sometimes, especially at the seaside. I don't think a
trip to the East Coast would have been complete as a 10 year old
without a go on the hook a duck or a roller coaster.
TOM (TOM Smiles) Indeed, I used to love the dodgems chasing after my
little sister on a damp afternoon. I bet they put sat navs in them
now, so you can seek and destroy your relatives with 21st century
precision. Nothing is sacred anymore.
ISABELLA (ISABELLA Smiles) No, although now I'm older and don't
want to be scared as much, I don't think I would mind one on the
ghost train. They could give you warnings like they do with speed
cameras, you know, zombie coming up in 10 metres, ghoul on your left
in 5 seconds.
TOM (Laughs) Perhaps they could give them to the parents with an
earphone, so mum and dad can have a peaceful trip round without
spoiling the surprise for the kids. (ISABELLA smiles). Anyway no
matter how much I liked shunting into my sister, do you know which
part of the fun fair always fascinated me the most?
ISABELLA No.
TOM It was the hall of mirrors. If there was one there my parents
knew they were in for an easy time as I could quite happily spend half
an hour gazing at the distorted forms of passers by.
ISABELLA Ah yes I remember, the short and fat, tall and thin…
TOM How long before the obesity epidemic makes our mirrors get
manufactured in a similar way, so that we feel better about
ourselves?
ISABELLA Like the old portraits of royalty, with blemishes of the
subject removed, Anne of Cleves style?
TOM Exactly. But I digress. If you come here I will try and show you
what I mean (TOM gestures to ISABELLA to stand nearer the front of
stage, whilst TOM goes to the handle in the wall and pulls it. In
doing so he pulls out a partition which comes part way into the room,
on which are four mirrors, one conventional at the side nearest the
door and three which could be taken from a hall of mirrors).
ISABELLA (ISABELLA Half quizzical / half excited) It's like your own
fairground.
TOM (TOM rejoins Isabella and both a positioned at the far left
mirror) It is an indulgence, I know, but it will illustrate my point
about bending. How many times have you had a problem or dilemma in
life that you weren't sure what to do with?
ISABELLA Hundreds, in fact I recently came to make a life changing
decision. But it took me ages to get there.
TOM Oh. That's interesting, do you mind me asking what it was?
ISABELLA, No, not at all. Although it does impact on this interview
and I wouldn't want you to think that I wasn't treating this in a
professional way.
TOM I don't follow.
ISABELLA I do have a confession to make. You are my last assignment.
I've been a journalist for the last eight years and with this
magazine for the last three. But come next week, for me at least,
Business Futures will become distinctly Business Past.
TOM Are you going to a new magazine?
ISABELLA No, it is a more dramatic change than that. I've always
been interested in people, which is partly what took me into
journalism in the first place. Although to be honest it was more to
do with wanting to influence, to change opinions. I've had a
fascination with history from an early age, I studied it at
university, but I was always more interested in the people side of it.
How they shaped events, how they were influenced to do what they did
and the role their environment, or context if you like, played in it.
In the end I found that the work I've done either in the regional
press where I worked before or the business journals where I am now
did help firm up context, it did help shape opinion, but it is not
direct enough. Not, not personal enough for what I really want. You
are just reporting back on the world and perhaps influencing it
slightly through the stories that you choose to report, the angle you
take, but it is not really exploring why they happen.
TOM Presumably you are changing to something that gives you more of a
direct role. I'm intrigued.
ISABELLA (smiling) Yes, I think so. From Monday I start a course in
psychoanalysis. (ISABELLA pause and slight embarrassment) Oh, that
sounded wrong, not as a treatment you understand, as a profession.
TOM With a view to practice or research?
ISABELLA Practice, definitely. At least to start with. Looking into
the past, into different events, feelings, actions. Trying to find
patterns in these to explain behaviour and help people get to grips
with their day to day life is something that I hope I will find not
only interesting but rewarding as well.
TOM A career change and one that involves retraining must have been a
difficult decision.
ISABELLA It was. It took me several months of indecision, before I
took the plunge. But anyway I'm sorry, I'm here to interview you,
not the other way round. Take me back to the fairground and these
mirrors.
TOM Don't worry, I think you are inadvertently illustrating what I
was going to show you. You say that there was a long period of
indecision…
ISABELLA Yes
TOM That's understandable. So when the idea first came to you what
did you think?
ISABELLA It was about a year ago. I thought wouldn't it be good
if… but then the uncertainties took over. Moving out of my comfort
zone, surviving financially without a job whilst I studied. Those
sorts of things.
TOM So that held you back did it?
ISABELLA Yes to a degree. I did some research on what it entailed,
looked into getting a study loan, but only half heartedly. After a
few months I talked to my friends, some of them were encouraging, but
others and my parents were less so. Some thought I'd be mad to give
up a steady job that after all didn't make me unhappy, although it
didn't make me happy either. For the unknown, for trying to build
up a practice, to involving myself in the lives of troubled people,
who may take years to get to a better place. I got serious with my
boyfriend about six months ago and he was of the opposite opinion, you
only live once, follow your dream. That kind of thing.
TOM This is kind of what I meant by bending. When the dilemma first
occurred you had one fixed viewpoint, it may have been a good idea,
but not practical, something to perhaps dream about, correct?
ISABELLA Correct
TOM It's a bit like looking into this mirror (TOM points to the
mirror on the left), you look into it but it's not a true
reflection. The situation that you are articulating is distorted by
your perspective, which like this particular mirror is skewed.
ISABELLA Ok
TOM You then started getting different opinions from other people,
friends, family and so on, these are a bit like the other two mirrors
here (TOM points to the two other distorted mirrors). If you look
into them (ISABELLA stands in front of each in turn) then again you
don't get a true reflection, but the image is distorted in different
ways. Here you are short and fat, there you are tall and thin.
Neither is an accurate representation of what you, or your situation,
actually is.
ISABELLA I think I follow
TOM The last mirror (gestures to ISABELLA to stand in front of it)
isn't distorted. It is an accurate reflection of you.
ISABELLA (ISABELLA gesturing to her left), I think I preferred tall,
thin and slightly blurred. (TOM and ISABELLA both smile) But I think I
get what you are saying. For each decision there are a number of ways
of looking at it that need considering before you reach the right
conclusion.
TOM Precisely. If you thought really deeply on the matter, then I'm
sure all those perspectives would have come from within and if you
thought about them in the cold hard light of day then you would have
been able to see the advantages and disadvantages in each and
synthesise them into the last solution (TOM starts to retract the
wall). If that were a client coming to me it is my job to get him or
her to that last mirror, so they can make a decision objectively.
Even if when they first express it to me they do so from a certain
perspective, I just need to bend their thoughts back to them in a way
that takes that distortion away.(TOM gestures for ISABELLA to retake
her seat, whilst he picks up his coffee cup and goes to the sideboard
to refill it, TOM stays at the sideboard and looks at Isabella whilst
she speaks).
ISABELLA I can see that, but earlier you talked about your clients
doing the work, about you being passive like the mirror (ISABELLA
points to the mirror on the wall). The fairground mirrors don't
talk back they just give a distorted view, so how do you remain
passive and objective. If you are carrying the analogy that far.
TOM (gestures to the picture on the wall). You know Socrates?
ISABELLA The one on the wall rather than the Brazilian footballer?
TOM Yes, although that could have led me into another world entirely.
As a small child I always heard his name on the commentary as Soccer
Tease and how Brazil used this Soccer Tease to get one up on their
opponents. It took me a world cup cycle to realise he was a player
and not some all conquering tactic.
ISABELLA (ISABELLA laughs) Although the original was quite athletic by
all accounts, Athenian soldier and thinker. "The unexamined life is
not a life worth living" wasn't it, a constant questioning of
those around him so he understood the world.
TOM Quite so, it was him who got me into all this. We did him at
school once, just for an afternoon, it must have been in General
Studies or something, because we didn't normally go near philosophy.
I remember Mr Edmonds telling us that Socrates used to talk to
people, particularly the young, to get them to try and think for
themselves, to challenge convention and to come to an understanding as
to what was truly good or virtuous.
ISABELLA No wonder you only did it for an afternoon, Mr Edmonds sounds
like a brave man to tell his class to challenge convention
TOM I seem to remember that there were more and more mutterings as the
class went on and I don't think Miss Hardacre who we had for music
straight afterwards appreciated it. We were bad enough to herd into
practice rooms and produce something worthwhile without being
empowered by an Ancient Greek. The mood passed though and to be
honest, whilst I know something must have stuck with me, I didn't
really give it another moments thought for another 10 years or so.
After all who wants to challenge the convention of girls, football and
TV, the holy trinity of a teenage boy's existence?
ISABELLA So if you put it to one side, but you credit Socrates with a
role, then presumably your business here is quite new, what did you do
before?
TOM I followed the standard career path for the moderately intelligent
average middle class school leaver. I went to university and studied
Business Administration, graduated and got a job in an office doing
glorified admin work. No excitement there I'm afraid.
ISABELLA Did you just decide to give it in one day and do something on
your own?
TOM It was standing in Tescos with my boss trying to decide which
cakes to buy for the team meeting that did that.
ISABELLA Cake?
TOM (TOM slightly distracted) Hmmm yes cake, (TOM getting up and going
to the cupboard as next lines spoken pulls a packet of cakes (Mr
Kiplings out, opens it puts it on a plate and returns to the table)I
like cake and as it plays a role with Socrates in the tale then
perhaps we should treat ourselves (TOM pointing to the cakes) help
yourself.
ISABELLA (ISABELLA taking a cake and eating it over the foil wrapper),
Thank you.
TOM But cake is still a little way in the future at this point. I
must have been at the same firm about 7 years when my doubts started
to appear. I'd had a few promotions, each one bringing with it just
sufficient challenge to keep me hooked with the firm for a few more
pay cheques. But there was no future. I thought of going elsewhere,
but deep down I knew I was only qualified to do more of the same, just
in a different office, with different people, so why leave my comfort
zone?
ISABELLA Oh don't say that you will get me back to short and fat on
your mirror wall.
TOM (TOM slight smile) Don't worry. I took the plunge like you are
about to do and I couldn't have wished for anything more.
ISABELLA So what happened?
TOM Well the company I worked for seemed to have a fondness for
consultants coming in to look at processes one week, systems the next,
organisational culture the following month. How to communicate with
customers, how to communicate with staff, I could go on but I won't.
The thing that struck me first was that all these consultants
preached from the gospel of the bloody obvious. Or perhaps more
politely, common sense with a nice four quadrant model attached. It
used to annoy me at first, not just having to spend hours listening to
consultant speak, optimising our USP, objectifying our deliverables.
Or, my favourite when we once recorded a loss due to some unseasonable
weather and they came up with the statement that we de-grew our
profits. Why I had to put up with this inane drivel and why the
company chose to spend good money on average people to tell them what
deep down it, or any sensible person would know was completely beyond
me.
But then I realised annoyance wasn't the right reaction and I was
doing the consultants, or at least their owners, a disservice. They
were the clever ones. It was them that were making a fortune from
what would seem to be unpromising material.
ISABELLA Did you jump ship and join them then?
TOM Not quite, but for a while I thought that was the answer. No two
things happened, a long train ride to deepest Lincolnshire to see my
Aunt Mary and the incident with the cakes.
ISABELLA Go on, was Aunt Mary one of these consultants?
TOM No, not at all, she is a lollipop lady and has been for 30 years.
It wasn't Aunt Mary herself that changed things more the absolute
tedium of the journey. Have you ever been on one of those country
trains that stop at every station on a stiflingly hot August
afternoon?
ISABELLA Not in August, but I know what you mean, you look on a map
and think at that distance you will be there in no time, but after 10
stations with another 20 to go you feel like you will never get
there.
TOM Exactly. Well on this journey I read the entire newspaper cover
to cover, including every single book review in the arts section,
which I've never managed before or since. One of the books under
review was about Socrates' Athens and it took me back to that
afternoon with Mr Edmonds. It made me think about work and the
consultants and asking questions, not about being good or virtuous,
but about really challenging the conventions of the business and the
market. I thought about leaving work and doing some form of
consultancy, but I thought I needed an angle, a selling point. All
these firms spout some technique or system, or perhaps the same
techniques slightly re-shaped, but I hadn't got one.
I did however go and buy the book, at least I did as soon as I came
back into civilisation and read it on the bus every day. I remember
that one night I'd gone to the football after work, so it was dark
when I was on the bus home and although I was tired I still read on. I
happened upon a passage where Socrates compares himself to a midwife,
with his role being to test whether what people think is actually
alive and real or some form of phantom.