Half Life
A play about notoriety
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Louise’s kitchen looks onto a desolate beach. Deliberately desolate. The authorities have found her a remote spot, far from the attentions of all but the most curious. Her previous home was in a place less lonely – and yet a place more lethally accessible to the baying mob. They killed her cat, and she’s pretty sure they’d’ve done the same for her, had she not managed to flee in the night, with nothing but the pyjamas that clad her.
Here, in the new place, she’s safe. Well, safer, at least – in spite of the nearby nuclear plant. Here, beside the seaside, she has peace, quiet and all the time she needs to brood alone on the crime that made her the most hated woman in England. |
It’s ten years now since that crime was committed, and though it wasn’t her doing (Neville, her boyfriend, was the perpetrator), her role as an accessory has never been forgiven. As the unhappy anniversary approaches, so do Harrap and Kirtley, two red-top journos anxious to escort Louise down Memory Lane. As it will transpire, the hacks aren’t necessarily seeking answers to the same questions – but no matter: for, either way, if Louise is less than keen to co-operate, Neville himself is never too far away to help tell her story...
Half Life examines the quality of infamy, and the enduring capacity of the British people to seek comfort through demonisation. |
If you’d like to know more about Half Life, contact Robert Cohen
at [email protected]
at [email protected]
