Killology

by Gary Owen

In Killology, players are rewarded for torturing victims, scoring points for “creativity”.But Killology isn’t sick. In fact it’s marketed by its millionaire creator as a deeply moral experience. Because yes, you can live out your darkest fantasies, but you don’t escape their consequences.Out on the streets, not everybody agrees with him.“There is an instinctive revulsion against taking a human life. And that revulsion can be conquered.”

Genres: Plays

134 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 24, 2017

About the author

Gary Owen is a Welsh playwright and screenwriter. His recent plays include Violence and Son which had its premiere at the Royal Court in June 2015, and Iphigenia in Splott for which he won the James Tait Black Prize for Drama.

His other works include Love Steals Us From Loneliness, Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco, The Shadow of a Boy, (winner of Meyer Whitworth and George Devine awards), The Drowned World  (winner of Fringe First and Pearson Best Play awards), Ghost City, Cancer Time, SK8, Big Hopes, In the Pipeline, Blackthorn, Mary Twice, Amgen:Broken, Bulletproof, and Free Folk. His adaptations include Spring Awakening and Ring Ring, a new version of La Ronde, for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama; and Dickens' A Christmas Carol for Sherman Cymru. He is a Creative Associate at Watford Palace Theatre, where his plays We That Are Left, Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian, and Perfect Match have been produced, and Associate Artist at Sherman Cymru. Gary also co-created and co-wrote two seasons of Baker Boys, an original series for BBC Wales. Work in 2016 includes Jeramee, Hartleby and Oooglemore, a play for toddlers at the Unicorn Theatre, to be directed by Tim Crouch; and Mrs Reynolds a’r Cena Bach, a Welsh adaptation of Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian for Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru.

Reviews

[Harry McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm so torn about this play and three stars is a complete cop-out. On the one hand it shares with only American Psycho the distinction of making me - horror film aficionado - feel physically sick simply by reading a text. On the other, the sheer force and power of Owen's text is so overwhelming that I can't not admire it deeply. On the page it doesn't seem to suffer from a slackening of tension that defined the production I saw last year, and the swirling realism (or lack thereof) seems to cohere far more effectively than I thought. I can't say I'll be reading it again any time soon though.

More here: https://harryrmcdonald.wordpress.com/...

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly devastating play which, while addressing modern violence and video game culture in a post-industrial world, for me the main theme of the play was dealing with the failings of masculinity. Killology explores two damaged father-son relationships, and Gary Owen deals with the struggles men face generationally in such a haunting way. Owen is amazing at conveying story through monologue which is an extremely difficult medium to achieve without seeming too on-the-nose as a playwright. But, like his earlier play, Iphigenia in Splott, Owen brings the darker elements of our world into the spotlight and challenges our ideas of masculinity, fatherhood and grief.

[Lauren Ingebrigtsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ow ow ow ow ow this one hurt 🥲