Enlightenment

Description

Disappearance of son provides compelling study of grief and loss "At three o'clock in the morning, this is what I think. I think somebody killed him. They killed him, God, I don't know how I'm uttering these words...they killed him because he's white and Western and they hated him. And it wasn't personal. Which somehow makes it worse." When Lia and Nick's son disappears when overseas, all they have is an email that he was thinking of going to Jakarta, leaving them with their own grief and uncertainty. And then a stranger appears, uncannily like their son, covered in scars and holding Adam's passport...Enlightenment is a powerful study of parental grief and of hope amidst uncertainty.; Published to tie-in with the world premier at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in March 2005.; Major new work by the writer of the Olivier Award-winning West End hit The Memory of Water.

Shelagh Stephenson's first play for the stage The Memory Of Water was produced at Hampstead Theatre in 1996, directed by Terry Johnson. In 1997 An Experiment With An Air Pump won the Peggy Ramsay Awar d was produced at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. In Oct 1998 the play transferred to Hampstead Thea tre, starring Barbara Flynn. The Memory Of Water played at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York and si multaneously toured the south of England, subsequently coming into the West End. In 2000 it won an O livier Award for Best New Comedy and has been produced worldwide. Shelagh's stage adaptation of her radio play Five Kinds Of Silence played at the Hammersmith Lyric May-July 2000. Ancient Lights for H ampstead Theatre opened Dec '00. Her most recent play Mappa Mundi was produced in the Cottesloe, Nat ional Theatre in Autumn 02, directed by Bill Alexander and starring Alun Armstrong and Lia Williams.