“The ban on corporal punishment came into force in 1986 in British state schools (private schools took a while longer: until 1998 in England and Wales, 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in Northern Ireland)” (Walter, 2016).
So if you’re a teacher with a history of corporal punishment, it makes sense that you would keep it close to your chest, even from your family, until push comes to shove later.
What causes the most popular teacher to become under siege? Edward is due to retire as Deputy Head after 45 years on the job. Having married Maureen and having their only daughter Anna you could be mistaken that this is the picture-perfect family. What could be more ordinary? Anna returns to the family home. She’s had children of her own and has spent a long time apart from her parents. Upon returning, she quickly discovers that her father is under attack from his students. Edward’s looming retirement has brought back past demons of his actions at the school and soon at home. The longer Anna is there, the more family secrets and the pending school’s future seem to come to light. Which begs the question, just who is out for revenge against Edward?
A Deputy Head who once used the cane expects his colleagues to come to his aid just like his wife of nearly fifty years. The thing is, Maureen hasn’t known the whole truth regarding Edward’s teaching career. When explaining to Anna to survive marriage, as long as she and Edward have a few little secrets here and there, it’ll create no harm. Surely. “…We’re together, me and him – forty-seven years – because we respect each other: little secrets, little lies. He has his. Fine. I have mine. An adult is a person who understands that some things can never be known” (Ravenhill, 2018).
Edward had secrets, and perhaps Maureen had hers that wasn’t so clear when reading the script but could be in production. I suspect that Edward could have abused Maureen. It could have caused Anna to react violently towards him, which Edward denies – in other words, he can’t remember. There are many lines from each of the three characters suggesting actions of violence. The fact that Maureen has to ‘scrub up’ for the Head’s visit is her armour to communicate that everything is fine regarding her marriage. Still, it’s also Edward’s shield to show anyone from the outside world that his wife puts in an effort for him or to hide anything that could give him away.
I got the impression that Ravenhill wanted to paint two sides to every character. I saw Maureen as a Lady Macbeth type in the beginning; however, when Anna calculated that plan to send the mob into the house, it was Maureen screaming to stop it from happening. As ‘one-minute theatre reviews’ states regarding the Royal Court Theatre, London production, “…Maggie Steed as the oppressed, bullied, proudly loyal wife but also nasty when cornered. Alun Armstrong, with calm reasonableness, red-faced anger, and underlying weakness, all somehow present whichever was being displayed at the time. And Nicola Walker so natural in the way she talks and moves, so incredibly still when she was observing the others, making her reasonable character’s unreasonable behaviour deeply disturbing” (Lewis, 2018). Paul Lewis, who wrote the review, has really hit the nail on the head, and I didn’t see the production in twenty-eighteen.
A past can come back to haunt you no matter the passage of time. Ravenhill’s script focuses on Edward’s teaching career and the potential downfall of the school. Astonishingly, it seems as though both Edward and Maureen want to brush the past under the carpet and forget about it, not actually dealing with it. Edward’s career and family life have become one at this stage, especially when Anna steps outside and lets the angry mob of students into the house. Everyone now knows the truth; the question is, what’s going to happen next?
The three characters talk about the school system and how some teachers get stuck in their traditional ways. I mean, they were once legal, yet no longer, so the school (or Edward) should have no reason to enforce these methods. Everything at present is now being uncovered, creating a spine-chilling work of fiction that could easily be reality.
Bibliography
- Lewis, P. (2018). The Cane with Nicola Walker, Maggie Steed and Alun Armstrong -review. One Minute Theatre Reviews. Available at:https://oneminutetheatrereviews.co.uk/review/the-cane/ [Accessed 19 July 2022].
- Persson, J. (2018). Stonking Parts: Nicola Walker and Maggie Steed. Royal Court. London: The Sunday Times.
- Ravenhill, M. (2018). The Cane. London: Bloomsbury, Methuen Drama.
- Walter, J. (2016). Why I’m glad, corporal punishment is now only found in books. The Guardian. Available at:https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/jul/01/corporal-punishment-jon-walter#:~text=The%20on%20corporal%20punishment,and%202003%20in%20Northern%20Ireland) [Accessed 17 July 2022].