Play for study: Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons by Sam Steiner

Sam Steiner, Beccy Thompson
Friday, September 1, 2023

Each issue of D&T we bring you a teacher or academic's guide to a play for study with your students. This issue, Beccy Thompson introduces Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons.

Adeeb and Shai's performance of Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons
Adeeb and Shai's performance of Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

NHB

Plot

Sam Steiner's 2015 play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (or Lemons x5) follows Bernadette and Oliver's romance as they negotiate a society in which a law is imposed permitting each person to use only 140 words a day. It is an amusing examination of romance, from the couple's meeting in a pet cemetery, to Bernadette's jealousy of Oliver's ex Julie and Oliver's problems with Bernadette's career as a lawyer.

It explores their differing perspectives on the impeding ‘quietude bill’. While Bernadette approaches the law naively, claiming that ‘apparently it's been really good in Norway’, Oliver joins a march against it. However, as Steiner's non-linear narrative unfolds, questions emerge about the importance of language for communication. When the bill is passed, the couple have to choose what to talk about and how many words to save to share with each other. The play ends with Oliver confessing his infidelity with Julie, with Bernadette (running low on words) replying coldly, ‘I think I knew’. At these heightened moments, Steiner strips the text and characters to their emotional core.

Themes

Love is the focus from the play's early scenes, which flit between pre and post-hush law. Bernadette's early utterance of ‘lovou’ seems like a charming phrase couples might share, but it foregrounds the difficult choices Bernadette and Oliver make about how to redact their words. As the story arc develops, the concept of freedom is examined. This could be discussed with students in terms of the current debate on freedom of speech. The swiftness with which the hush law is passed is absurd, but is now all too familiar in our post-Covid world. Oliver's angry reaction of ‘Democracy is about voices being heard’ is rendered as less dystopian and alarmingly familiar.

Style

The play is minimalist in style, which was reflected in Robert Jones’ set for the 2022 revival, consisting of brightly lit everyday objects stacked methodically against a Vantablack backdrop. Its repetitive title reflects the limitation of language and its potential for ambiguous use. Incidentally though, ‘lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons’ is just one line that Bernadette shouts in frustration at Oliver to use up words.

Although not an absurdist play, there are parallels with this genre. The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco is a similar two-hander in which a couple interact with invisible guests using often non-sensical language, stressing the breakdown of communication. Like Ionesco, Steiner explores existential themes as Oliver and Bernadette question the meaning of human existence, as they grapple with isolation provoked by limited language. However, Lemons x5 is also a personal dialogue between two characters navigating a relationship. Despite the restrictions, the characters find ways to love and hurt each other, underlining the adaptability of human nature.

Exploring the text

There is potential to study Lemons x5 for KS4/5 performance exams or as part of a broader scheme of work. If you're studying the text with older students, it would be worth comparing the effects of nonlinear narratives with texts such as Pinter's Betrayal. The effect of Steiner's jumping narrative creates a rhythm much like Pinter's play, which emphasises the impending crisis. To support students’ understanding of this, ask them to write out the sequence of events in a well-known news story – in the order they unfolded. Next, ask them to reorder the events as they encountered them, using this as a way into discussing the effects of structuring a plot vs narrative. Finally, reflect on why it is powerful to play the story out of chronological order, especially to highlight particular themes or issues.

Oliver and Bernadette quickly learn they need to replace words with body language and sounds. To explore this, put students into pairs (A and B). Give As an instruction such as ‘open the window’, which they must communicate to B using only one word. Follow-up discussions could ask, ‘how was it possible to get A to complete the action’? and ‘what was the effect of watching B’? This could be followed by enacting short excepts from the play starting by creating an action for each line. When reflecting on the theme of freedom, students’ experience of the exercise could be used to discuss Bernadette's statement about the hush law that ‘You can say anything you like just… concisely’ as a retort against the pervading authoritarianism in Lemons x5.

While recently billed as a ‘rom-com’, Lemons x5 unravels the complexities of contemporary relationships, personal politics and individual freedom, making it worthy of consideration when refreshing a school drama curriculum.

Resources and links

Buy the playscript at nickhernbooks.co.uk/lemons