Behind Closed Doors
Janet Shaw
Genre: Drama
Cast size: 8
Duration: Two Act
Janet Shaw | Drama | Full-length | 5m, 3f
Short synopsis
- Synopsis
- Characters
Set in 1969, when physical and mental abuse was a fact of life to many women, this play is about domestic violence inside marriage – a subject still regrettably topical even in today's 'enlightened' times. The engagement of two university students brings together their families.
Sandra is from working class Doncaster and Tarquin is from the stockbroker belt of Chertsey in Surrey. The parents of both these students, although geographically and sociologically distant, share a common problem - the two fathers are controlling bullies with large fists. One mother seeks continual refuge in vodka bottles, the other in a make-believe gentleman companion, who is the antithesis of her husband.
The play explores their different social attitudes in a dramatically comedic way to start with, but the mood darkens considerably when the brutish red mist and balled fists become unbearable and unstoppable, with unpleasant, but not altogether unexpected results.
Janet Shaw says...
“Behind Closed Doors” is a term we hear often in the comings and goings of life, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t. There is nothing funny about domestic abuse, but when I wrote this play I thought: "no one wants to go to the theatre and feel totally demoralised" so I included, what I hope, is an awful lot of humour.
As a survivor of abuse I didn’t try to trivialise the total helplessness of someone in what can be only described as a tragic situation.
It doesn’t always have to be physical abuse; mental abuse can be as equally soul destroying. It isn’t easy to escape from these situations and often I find myself smiling when I hear people say: “He would only do that to me once”... you have to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you have the right to say those words.
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