Monsters

A play about the killing of James Bulger

Niklas Rådström, Gabriella Berggren

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781840029284
• eBook ISBN: 9781849436274
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"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.

SCENE 1 – I DON’T KNOW

CHORUS FOR FOUR VOICES:

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know why you came here

I don’t know what you expect from a performance about two children who kill a third

I don’t know what you expect to hear

You probably want to know why

Why did that which soon will happen here already happen?

How could such a thing happen: children killing children, brutally, ruthlessly, planlessly destructively?

That situation must surely be so different from anything I know that it would never happen anywhere near me.

Someone must tell me why, so I need never think about it.

I don’t know why

I don’t know if there is an answer.

Maybe there are many answers.

I don’t know what to believe.

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know if you are prepared to handle what has already happened and will happen here.

Maybe you are not here to understand.

Maybe you are here to keep that thought at bay.

The thought that something like that could happen – children killing children.

I don’t know what you intend to do about it.

I don’t know if you can do anything about it.

I don’t know if we can give you any answers.

I don’t know if you can give us any answers.

CHORUS LEADER:

I don’t know what you expect to experience

now that you’ve come to the theatre to see two children killing a third

Do you want to upset yourself with an experience that is – frightening? disturbing? moving? educational?

Do you think it is useful to watch the enactment of two children killing a third?

Do you think it might teach you something?

Do you think you can tell your friends:

Last week I went to the theatre and saw

two children killing a third

That it could happen

That it already happened

And you tell your friends:

It was

CHORUS: – frightening? disturbing? moving? educational?

CHORUS LEADER: or just

CHORUS: – silly? neurotic? pretentious? sentimental?

CHORUS LEADER: But I ask you: why should we care

what you think of our performance

about what happens here without you?

What we want to know is:

CHORUS: Are you prepared to be a witness?

If so will you only be a witness?

Or are you prepared to intervene?

Are you prepared to step in and prevent what is about to happen?

Are you prepared to go from being an onlooker

to being someone who acts?

CHORUS LEADER: And if you are prepared to act:

what will your actions be?

SCENE 2 – TWO BOYS

CHORUS LEADER: Two boys – Jon and Robert

CHORUS: Robert and Jon

Jon and Robert

Ten years old

CHORUS LEADER: Take a child,

a mere two-year-old, three in a few months

CHORUS: The child has no name

It could be anyone

It could be my child

It could be your child

It could be the child we think of

when we think of a child

CHORUS LEADER: The child is two years old

and stands waiting for its mum

in the shopping centre outside a butcher’s shop

CHORUS: ‘Come, baby, come here,’ they say

The two boys

Robert and Jon Jon and Robert

Two children

who, before the day is over

will have killed another

CHORUS LEADER: And so the child goes with them

Twenty surveillance cameras in the shopping centre watch it all

CHORUS: There, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there

CHORUS LEADER: We see them everywhere, don’t we?

The blind eyes of CCTV cameras.

Each one watching us with its solitary eye

– you, me, anyone –

Asking the question of the Cyclops: ‘Who are you?’

And getting the answer: ‘No one. I am no one.’

CHORUS: The cameras have already seen

Robert and Jon

Jon and Robert

nick a few batteries in one shop,

steal a small tin of paint in another

The kind of paint you

use to paint small model kits

Robert’s elder brother does that sometimes,

did it once when he was younger

Robert sat next to him and watched

And now Robert has stolen a paint tin

Or was it...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title page
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• SCENE 1 – I DON’T KNOW
• SCENE 2 – TWO BOYS
• SCENE 3 – DO YOU KNOW WHAT TRUTH IS?
• SCENE 4 – DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE?
• SCENE 5 – CHORUS INTERLUDE
• SCENE 6 – I WANTED SOMETHING ELSE SOMEWHERE ELSE
• SCENE 7 – CAMERAS DON’T LIE
• SCENE 8 – AND HE GAVE ME SUCH A LOOK
• SCENE 9 – IS THAT THE TRUTH OR ARE YOU LYING?
• SCENE 10 – TV NEWS REPORT
• SCENE 11 – I KNOW ALL THOSE TRAINS
• SCENE 12 – NOTHING LIKE THIS HAS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE
• SCENE 13 – CHILDREN WHO HAVE MURDERED OTHER CHILDREN
• SCENE 14 – YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY I KILLED HIM
• SCENE 15 – WHEN WOULD I HAVE TALKED TO HIM?
• SCENE 16 – TELL HIM YOU’LL LOVE HIM WHATEVER HE SAYS
• SCENE 17 – BECAUSE WE HAVE HIS BODY
• SCENE 18 – THIRTY-EIGHT PEOPLE
• SCENE 19 – WAIT
• SCENE 20 – I KILLED THE KID
• SCENE 21 – THE MONSTERS
• SCENE 22 – FEEL HOW HEAVY IT IS
• SCENE 23 – AND THEN?
• SCENE 24 – DOWN THERE
• SCENE 25 – THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED
• SCENE 26 – THE DEAD CHILDREN
• SCENE 27 – IT WAS MY CHILD THAT DIED
• SCENE 28 – MR NOBODY
• SCENE 29 – JAMES
• SCENE 30 – WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
• Afterword