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Monsters: A play about the killing of James Bulger
"None of this should ever have happened. Somebody should have given us a different life."
Two ten-year-olds are brought in for questioning. A third boy has gone missing. The investigator is gentle. The boys begin to talk. 1993. A play about the killing of James Bulger. Stripped to the bone, faithful to the facts. Unflinching.
Two ten-year-olds are brought in for questioning. A third boy has gone missing. The investigator is gentle. The boys begin to talk. 1993. A play about the killing of James Bulger. Stripped to the bone, faithful to the facts. Unflinching.
- GenresPlays
78 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 27, 2020
This shocking and disturbing play is based off of the vents of the kidnapping and murder of James Bulgar.
The entirety of the script is compiled of real words spoken in interviews, by the parents, and all involved. And then formed into a play that tells the story from when the two other kids were arrested, until they confessed all the despicable actions that had committed.
The entirety of the script is compiled of real words spoken in interviews, by the parents, and all involved. And then formed into a play that tells the story from when the two other kids were arrested, until they confessed all the despicable actions that had committed.
October 10, 2016
Herregud.
October 23, 2020
3.5 stars.
This is such a unique play! The author states that the structure is inspired by Greek theatre and it really shows- there is a Chorus, for instance.
I'm pleased with just how accurate this is when it comes to the actual interrogations/events that transpired. The things said in this play during the interrogation scenes are nearly word-for-word accounts of what was actually said. I'd love to see this staged; I do theatre and while I was reading, I kept imagining how I would stage it. There are so many possibilities and I think that makes reading this even more interesting.
This is such a unique play! The author states that the structure is inspired by Greek theatre and it really shows- there is a Chorus, for instance.
I'm pleased with just how accurate this is when it comes to the actual interrogations/events that transpired. The things said in this play during the interrogation scenes are nearly word-for-word accounts of what was actually said. I'd love to see this staged; I do theatre and while I was reading, I kept imagining how I would stage it. There are so many possibilities and I think that makes reading this even more interesting.
December 19, 2017
Haunting. This play recounts the true story of James Bulger, a toddler killed by two 10-year olds, through police interviews. One of the better plays I've read for drama.
January 2, 2020
You can just imagine being in the theatre whilst this is being performed , hearing the haunting almost chants from the chorus ..... a true story of the killing of James bulger,
January 9, 2022
It's scary to think about and I found it so interesting how they made the audience the witness
February 13, 2012
This is the English translation of a Swedish play (written by Niklas Radstrom, translated by Gabriella Berggren) about the murder of the young British toddler by two ten year-old boys. First performed live in Copenhagen in 2004, the English play debuted in London in 2009.
While reading the text of a play is vastly different to seeing it performed live, MONSTERS illuminates a number of essential questions in a riveting and effective manner. One is conscious the whole time of questions such as: What is evil? How do we stop it? Which is worse: to be the mother of the murdered child or the mother of the child who murders? Who was responsible for this murder? Is our tragic fate, as individuals and as a collective, always to be violence, or can we do something to intervene and change events?
With the structure of a Greek tragedy (complete with Chorus), the play uses fact to recreate the events surrounding the case without relying on sensation or gore. Not only is the stage direction for a sparse and neutral setting, but the dialogue is also presented in a clear documentary style, which avoids manipulating a tragic case into melodrama.
I did not like two aspects of the play. The first was the repeated attempt to lay a collective guilt on the people who, on that day in the shopping mall, did not notice anything wrong or who did not intervene. “Why didn’t you do something?” the Chorus Leader continuously exhorts both the play’s current audience and the shoppers of that fated day.
The second aspect I did not enjoy about this play was the clear sympathy for the murderers. They’re called “two confused boys who have landed in something they don’t know how to escape.” The guilt, Radstrom clearly believes, lies not with the choices the boys made to deliberately murder another child (James Bulger was the second child they’d tried to abduct that fated day) but with a society that (a) doesn’t intervene and (b) allows the kind of life the two boys and their families had. “Somebody should have given us a different life,” says Jon’s mother. We make our own choices in life: many people who live in dire circumstances of poverty do not choose, as these two boys did, to murder for no real apparent reason whatsoever.
Scene 13 (“Children who have murdered other children”) was the most shocking. An almost casual list of gruesome child on childe murder cases, dating back to 1748, was quite horrifying. Once again, though, Radstrom turns the guilt away from the children and onto a society that stands by without intervening, making the point that a violent society will breed violent children capable of individual acts of indescribable cruelty.
This was a thought-provoking and challenging text raising many fundamental issues that need to be explored if humanity is to have any hope of understanding, and perhaps overcoming, the inherent darkness (evil?) that lies within our nature.
While reading the text of a play is vastly different to seeing it performed live, MONSTERS illuminates a number of essential questions in a riveting and effective manner. One is conscious the whole time of questions such as: What is evil? How do we stop it? Which is worse: to be the mother of the murdered child or the mother of the child who murders? Who was responsible for this murder? Is our tragic fate, as individuals and as a collective, always to be violence, or can we do something to intervene and change events?
With the structure of a Greek tragedy (complete with Chorus), the play uses fact to recreate the events surrounding the case without relying on sensation or gore. Not only is the stage direction for a sparse and neutral setting, but the dialogue is also presented in a clear documentary style, which avoids manipulating a tragic case into melodrama.
I did not like two aspects of the play. The first was the repeated attempt to lay a collective guilt on the people who, on that day in the shopping mall, did not notice anything wrong or who did not intervene. “Why didn’t you do something?” the Chorus Leader continuously exhorts both the play’s current audience and the shoppers of that fated day.
The second aspect I did not enjoy about this play was the clear sympathy for the murderers. They’re called “two confused boys who have landed in something they don’t know how to escape.” The guilt, Radstrom clearly believes, lies not with the choices the boys made to deliberately murder another child (James Bulger was the second child they’d tried to abduct that fated day) but with a society that (a) doesn’t intervene and (b) allows the kind of life the two boys and their families had. “Somebody should have given us a different life,” says Jon’s mother. We make our own choices in life: many people who live in dire circumstances of poverty do not choose, as these two boys did, to murder for no real apparent reason whatsoever.
Scene 13 (“Children who have murdered other children”) was the most shocking. An almost casual list of gruesome child on childe murder cases, dating back to 1748, was quite horrifying. Once again, though, Radstrom turns the guilt away from the children and onto a society that stands by without intervening, making the point that a violent society will breed violent children capable of individual acts of indescribable cruelty.
This was a thought-provoking and challenging text raising many fundamental issues that need to be explored if humanity is to have any hope of understanding, and perhaps overcoming, the inherent darkness (evil?) that lies within our nature.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews