Synopses & Reviews
Eleven Vests: Two events involving the same person: in the first as a young teenager, in the second—years later—as an adult. They are strangely alike but, at the same time, worlds apart. It's as if the first event were turned upside down by the second. Partly this is because teenagers must answer to authority but adults must first answer to themselves. Eleven Vests shows how the adult self develops out of the earlier self. It asks: how do we learn responsibility for ourselves and what we do?
Eleven Vests was first presented by Big Brum Theatre in Education in the fall of 1997.
Tuesday: A young girl sits alone in her bedroom studying for exams. Her soldier boyfriend arrives unexpectedly from active service abroad. What happens in the little room during the next ninety minutes changes the girl forever: her attitude toward her father, war, violence, and life itself.
Tuesday was commissioned and broadcast by BBC TV Education in 1993. The text of Tuesday is published with rehearsal and teaching notes, and an interview with the author.
Synopsis
Two plays for young people
In Eleven Vests, one person is involved in two events; one at school, another as a soldier in the army. Although separated by years, the incidents bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. Eleven Vests shows how the adult develops from the younger self and looks at how tragedy escalates from seemingly minor confrontations.
Tuesday: a young girl sits alone in her bedroom studying when her soldier boyfriend returns unexpectedly from active service. In the action that follows she is confronted with a conflict of love and loyalty between him and her father.
Edward Bond "is one of the two or three major playwrights - and arguably the only one - to emerge since the fifties" (Observer)