Book description
We have the tools to enlighten and yet our world is darkening. We live
in an era of pessimism and worry; we are hollowed out, lurching from
crisis to crisis, with no faith that anything will improve, and no great
hopes to sustain us. So what's the answer? A small boy is driving his
mother to distraction - waking at night, hearing phantom noises and
fixating on his absent father. Douglas attends an innocuous motivational
course involving esoteric philosophy and mysteriously abandons his wife
and child to "live in a specific, pre-ordained way according to the
tenets of a spiritual leader." Is it a predatory cult or the
solution to all their problems? And how can a small child be expected to
understand adult thinking at its most complex and self-destructive? His
first dramatic work since 2007, Haunted Child marks the return to the
stage of multi-award winning playwright and screenwriter Joe Penhall.
With his trademark dark humour and sly observation, he poignantly
explores the gulf between childhood and adulthood and asks disturbing
questions about the lure of spiritual release in increasingly difficult
times. Penhall is very good at creating a sense of unease. As a
metaphor it is insidiously powerful. -- Michael Billington Guardian
20111209 Gets right under your skin - which is a credit both to
Penhall's writing and to the finely judged unease of Jeremy Herrin's
production. -- Paul Taylor Independent 20111212 Penhall's writing is not
ostentatious in it's absence of answers; rather it discreetly poses a
clutch of questions and just the kind of holes that strengthen the play
rather than weakening it. -- Ian Shuttleworth Financial Times 20111212
An eagerly awaited premier by Joe Penhall..author of Some Voices and
Blue/Orange. -- Kate Basset Independent on Sunday 20111218 An
exploration of the fragility of identity. -- Andrzej Lukowski Time Out
London 20111215 This high-energy play appeals to both head and heart. --
Aleks Sierz Tribune 20111223 Award-winning writer Joe Penhall was
described by The Financial Times as 'one of the finest playwrights of
his generation.' His debut at the Royal Court, Some Voices, won the John
Whiting Award for best new play. His National Theatre play Blue/Orange
won an Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Award and the Critics Circle
Award for Best Play. Joe wrote and produced the BAFTA winning BBC serial
Moses Jones and his feature film of Some Voices starred Daniel Craig and
premiered in competition at the Cannes Film festival . This was followed
by Enduring Love, also starring Daniel Craig, based on Ian McEwan's
novel; and his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, starring
Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen, which premiered in competition at
the Venice Film Festival in 2009.
