The Word-Butcher

By Ava Carpzov

The Word-Butcher is a short stage play about freedom of speech, inspired by the Theatre Of The Absurd and the censorship of the modern age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ava Carpzov
• Release date: Jul 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005769697

Ava Carpzov

Ava Carpzov was born in England in 1967. She lived in Athens, Greece for six years after moving there to teach English as a foreign language. She has a degree in English Literature and also writes short horror and science fiction stories.

Book preview

THE WORD-BUTCHER

By Ava Carpzov

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Caution

All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and applications for permission to perform it in whole or in part must be made in advance, before rehearsals begin, to the author at the Society of Authors, 84 Drayton Gardens, London SW10 9SB. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. No alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.

The Word-Butcher copyright © Anne-Marie Norman 2010.Anne-Marie Norman has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. This is the Smashwords edition.

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Characters

PRIEST: A catholic priest

BUTCHER: A ministerial butcher

WORDS: A troupe of words from the English language

DAVE AND GARY: Members of the audience

END OF THOUGHT TEAM: Three psychiatrists

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SCENE ONE

Lights up. London. A prison. Evening. There is a cage stage left. Locked inside the cage is a man. Above the cage, stage left, there is a very high, barred window. Nothing of the outside world can be seen. There is an oil lamp hanging on a hook on the back wall next to a kitchen sink and a door upstage right. Through this door is another door and then another. Due to the angles of the doors you can never see the outside even when they are all open at the same time. Everything on stage is in part only. Nothing is whole. The smell of raw meat and blood fill the theatre.

PRIEST: Two hundred days, five hours and seven minutes

Six foot by five by eight I measure this cage

Enclosed like some skull confining wits

A dungeon to a maze to freedom’s edge

But nineteen bars, each three inches in breadth

Make gaps between of two inches exact

I see the world in stripes as regular

As those they have imprinted on my back

Freedom to speak is in insanity

One certain thing. I have not felt warm for months

A butcher enters through the door, humming. He is bald, with eyes like eggs. He is wearing a striped apron. He carries with him a table, a bucket containing meat and a set of butcher’s knives, including an abnormally large cleaver. He sets up the table, transfers some of the meat onto it and starts chopping.

BUTCHER: That’s because there’s no central heating. The place is like a refrigerator.

PRIEST: Are you real?

BUTCHER: Of course I’m real. Meat head!

PRIEST: I haven’t seen you here before.

BUTCHER: Just because you haven’t seen me here before doesn’t make me unreal.

PRIEST: Who are you then? Another prisoner?

BUTCHER: A prisoner? Do I look like a prisoner? Do I look guilty? Am I foaming at the mouth? Am