Against

Christopher Shinn

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781350045989
• eBook ISBN: 9781350046009
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Go where there's violence. Silicon Valley. The future. A rocket launches. Luke is an aerospace billionaire who can talk to anyone. But God is talking to him. He sets out to change the world. Only violence stands in his way. Christopher Shinn's gripping play received its world premiere at the Almeida Theatre on 12 August 2017 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and featuring Ben Whishaw as Luke.

Against

1.1

Rocket factory, factory floor.

Quiet, dark.

Luke and Sheila sit. A silence.

Sheila . . . ‘Go where there’s violence.’

Luke Yes.

Sheila Do you think – ?

I’m sorry.

Luke What.

Sheila That – was a lot to take in all at once. Could you go through it again – more simply?

Luke I complicated it?

Sheila Yes. I’m sure you’re shocked to hear that.

Luke Ha. It’s like we’re working on the book again.

Sheila There I understand why you complicated things – you wanted the book to accurately reflect your thinking about technology and the future. But this is an experience. Apart from what you’ve come to think about that experience – I want to make sure I fully understand what happened.

Luke Okay – more simply.

After the new rocket launched successfully, the team gathered to go out for a celebratory lunch. I said I had some work to do. I had a – strange feeling something bad was going to happen.

Sheila To do with the rocket?

Luke No, something else. But I didn’t know what. – How am I doing so far?

Sheila Ha, very good.

Luke – So I drove back to the hotel.

I’m walking through the lobby towards the elevators and I have another feeling. It was a feeling I remembered as a child, at home. Usually it would happen when I was alone. I would think the phone was about to ring – and a second later it would.

Only this feeling was – that God was about to speak to me.

Sheila Literally –

Luke Literally God.

Sheila Were you scared?

Luke No. It was just a fact. A very clear feeling – empty. Like nothing. But at the same time it was incredibly present.

Then I went from feeling light to feeling heavy – like I was in quicksand. And then I was on the floor.

Sheila Now you must have been scared.

Luke No – I felt warm. Safe. Everything appeared very beautiful – the design of the carpet. The legs of the desk. The back of the chair. I had this intense awareness that everything had been made by human beings.

And then – God spoke to me.

I didn’t literally hear his voice. It was like an energy filled my body – an energy made of words.

And the words were, Go where there’s violence.

Sheila Over and over – the same phrase.

Luke Yes. But each time it felt different – like it was the first time I was hearing it.

Sheila What were you thinking?

Luke I wasn’t thinking. I was just – experiencing – feeling.

Sheila What was the feeling?

Luke – Truth.

Sheila Truth isn’t a feeling.

Luke I don’t know how else to say it. I was experiencing those words – that phrase – and I knew that what I was feeling was true.

Then after a while – it stopped. And everything went back to normal.

Pause.

Sheila And this has been going on for six months.

Luke It’s happened two other times. The same words each time: Go where there’s violence.

Sheila Before this – I never once heard you refer to a belief in God.

Luke Because I didn’t believe in him.

Sheila – Do you really feel it’s a he? You keep saying him and his –

Luke – I do – that’s probably not good, is it.

Sheila Well – if you really are planning to speak about this publicly –

Luke – I don’t have to say a gender –

Sheila – Let me just say this.

I understand that as a result of these – experiences – you feel there’s a mission you have to carry out. And you want to communicate openly about what you’ve experienced. But I’m as sympathetic a listener as you’ll find – and I’m having a hard time with this.

Luke I know that people might not believe me – that’s okay. I think it’s important to be truthful.

Sheila What I mean is – the mission as you described it to me – your plan – sounds really important. And I think if you tell people it was inspired by God – that will take away from your ability to carry it out.

Luke How so?

Sheila Some religious people will be threatened or offended. Many non-religious people will be turned off – think you’re crazy. The media will have a field day –

Luke People think of me as some – arrogant Silicon Valley billionaire – they need to know I’ve been humbled.

Sheila Can’t you show that through your actions?

Luke – But if I don’t tell people what’s inspired me, I’ll just seem like a celebrity with a pet cause. Or another public figure with political ambitions –

Sheila – Not if you frame it right. You want to carry out a massive nationwide anti-violence project. You’re stepping away from your companies to do it. It will be an evolving, long-term project with no definitive end point, and you are devoting yourself to it due to the seriousness – of our situation.

Luke . . . Do you think I’m psychotic?

Sheila – What the psychiatrist you saw said – sounds possible.

Luke I know there are high-functioning psychotics. You meet a lot of them in the start-up world – I know this isn’t that.

Sheila Everything you do – rockets, solar power, artificial intelligence – it’s all related to revolution, cataclysm, apocalypse – you’ve always lived on the edge of what most people can tolerate thinking about. Maybe that’s – caught up with you.

Luke The world is in trouble, Sheila. I’ve always known that intellectually – but I’ve never taken it in. I understand now that time is truly running out. We are destroying ourselves, on every level, through our violence – and we are incapable of thinking about it and acting on it in any but the most superficial and ephemeral ways. Everything I’ve invented was designe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• By the Same Author:
• Title Page
• Contents
• Characters
• Against
• Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Modern Plays: include work by
• Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Contemporary Dramatists: include
• eCopyright