The Road to Huntsville

Stephanie Ridings

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781788500630
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The Road to Huntsville by Stephanie Ridings is a short play for a solo performer about a writer researching women who fall in love with men on death row, who then finds herself crossing the line.

It was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in November 2016, as part of the Women Centre Stage Festival produced by Sphinx Theatre, demonstrating the range, depth and richness of women's writing for the stage.

The play is also available in Women Centre Stage, a collection of eight short plays selected by Sue Parrish, Artistic Director of Sphinx Theatre. All the plays included in this volume offer a wide variety of rewarding roles for women, and are perfect for schools, youth groups and theatre companies to perform. Other writers included in the collection include Winsome Pinnock, Timberlake Wertenbaker and April De Angelis.

Characters

STEPH

A solo show for a female performer.

The screen and images should be as integral to the text as the person performing it. If used, they should be individual to each performer and production.

Nothing and everything is real.

1 – The Beginning

You know when you’re a little kid and they tell you the bogeyman is going to come and get you and you’re supposed to feel scared? Well I always had a fantasy that the bogeyman came all dressed in black, black leather and he was riding on this big black stallion and he comes to my bedroom window, he comes to get me and I jump on the horse with him and I wrap my arms round his waist and I get under his cape and we fly away.

Beat.

These are not my words they are the words of an American woman in her early fifties, with wavy brown hair and bright-red lips.

Let’s call her Blanche.

Blanche is in love with a serial killer, who raped and murdered five students. She smiles and flirts with the camera as she explains she instantly felt attracted to him. He made her feel like a real woman. He’s a person and her feelings are based on him as a person.

Image of ‘Blanche’. Her face is covered up.

I’m tempted to tell you her real name and show you a proper picture but the documentary she is being interviewed for is exploiting her enough already. If you are interested put ‘Serial Killer Groupies’ into YouTube. Her surname matches England’s capital.

A younger woman now, mid-twenties long straight dark hair. Let’s call her Terri, with an I. Terri with an I was in love with a serial killer, he was charged with thirteen counts of murder and eleven of rape – that they could prove. Terri looks awkward as she describes him as hot, really hot, his eyes, his face his hair. She fell in love with him through his letters. They were pen pals.

Now there are hundreds of Blanches and Terries when you start to look and like me you may be thinking they’re spinsters, with cats, who rarely leave the house – unless posting a letter to an inmate – but no, there are Danielles too.

Danielle Steel Wikipedia page.

I’m not sure how familiar you are with the literary works of Danielle Steel.

The fourth best-selling author of all time, according to Wikipedia.

Also, according to Wikipedia, two of her five marriages were to convicts. She met both men whilst they were incarcerated. One was actually released on parole whilst they were dating and whilst he was out he raped a woman. Once back inside she married him in the prison canteen.

So let’s confirm that little bit of information. Danielle Steel married a man who raped a woman whilst they were together.

Pause.

Voice-over of women and images of prisoners.

‘I’ve always had a thing for bad boys.’

‘I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to know if he did what he really did.’

‘You just wanna break down the glass and get ’em out.’

‘It was a beautiful courtship and I don’t think we get to be courted any more.’

‘I know that he killed a lot of people but I didn’t really care about that.’

‘Some people are just supposed to be together whether there’s a cage or lawman between you.’

‘People fall in love all over the world and for all different reasons. I just happened to fall in love with a man on death row.’

These women are writers, journalists, lawyers, teachers, nurses, civil servants, mothers, wives. They come from a range of social backgrounds, do a range of jobs, are a range of ages and are scattered across the world.

They’re not serious though are they. They can’t believe any of it is real. How can you find your soulmate through letters or bulletproof glass? Surely they’re just projecting a fantasy onto the men. And these men, these are some of society’s worst. Murderers, rapists, necrophiles, serial killers, psychopaths, master manipulators. Surely they just want the women for the money they send and perhaps the odd risqué photo to trade with the other inmates.

I only do a little digging into this subject and I’m hooked and realise I could write a play about this.

So I order a book called Women Who Love Men Who Kill, and whilst I wait for it to arrive I get stuck into every documentary I can find.

Images on screen accompany following text:

‘Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald.’

A few Louis Theroux bits.

Lots by Werner Herzog.

‘Life and Death Row’ – via the BBC.

‘The Final Twenty-Four Hours.’

‘Serial Killer Groupies.’

‘Taboo: Love On Death Row.’

‘The Last 40 Miles.’

‘Married Behind Bars.’

‘Death Row Dates.’

‘Love Behind Bars.’

Erm no can’t remember that one.

‘Fourteen Days in May.’

‘At the Death House Door.’

I watch them all, over and over in case I miss anything, which may be super important.

Occasionally I throw in a cat GIF just to keep things light.

Show cat GIF.

I watch these documentaries over and over and tell myself it’s research, even though I’ve already watched them, studied them and made comprehensive notes. I study them again and make new notes because present me is always to be trusted over past me.

Each night the other half, Stompy – Stompy as he always stomps off whenever we row – Stompy comes home from work and he starts making dinner whilst I lean up against the kitchen door and regale him with what facts I uncovered that day.

Facts appear on screen as she lists them.

Most, if not all executions are carried out by lethal injection. This was a three-drug system but due to shortage it is now a one-drug system.

There is a higher percentage of poor, black and ethnic-minority inmates in prison and on death row.

You’re likely to spend an average of fifteen years waiting to be executed.

Texas is only the third largest death row in the USA but it executes the most people.

On Texas death row you spend nearly twenty-three hours a day locked up.

And that’s in solitary confinement and t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Original Production Details
• The Road to Huntsville
• The Sphinx Test
• Biography
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information