Stoning Mary (NHB Modern Plays)

By debbie tucker green

Mysterious yet compelling, bewildering yet intoxicating, a play that mixes poetic rhythms with vernacular phrases, rap-song repetitions with complex psychology.
A husband and wife row about a prescription. A mother and father row about their son, who has become a child soldier. Two sisters row about which one is superior to the other. It emerges that the younger sister, Mary, has killed the child soldier. She is to be stoned to death...
What if all these things were happening here? And what if these people were white?
debbie tucker green's play stoning mary was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in April 2005.
'A theatrical event that brands the conscience as firmly as any hot rod on goatskin... stoning mary is not pretty. It is not easy. But it will wind you with its punch' - Daily Mail
'Works unnervingly well' - Evening Standard
'One of the most assured and extraordinary new voices we've heard in a long while' - Independent

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Dec 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788505154

debbie tucker green

debbie tucker green is a playwright, screenwriter and director. Her plays include: a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun) (Royal Court Theatre, 2017); hang (Royal Court, 2015); nut (National Theatre, 2013); truth and reconciliation (Royal Court, 2011); random (Royal Court, 2008); generations (Young Vic, 2007); stoning mary (Royal Court, 2005); trade (RSC, 2005); born bad (Hampstead Theatre, 2003; Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer); and dirty butterfly (Soho Theatre, 2003). She wrote and directed the feature film, Second Coming (BFI/Film 4, 2014; International Film Festival Rotterdam Big Screen Award) and adapted her play random into a TV film for Channel 4, which won the 2012 BAFTA for Best Single Drama and the Black International Film/MVSA Award for Best UK Film. Her work for radio includes: lament (Radio Academy Arias Gold Award), gone, random, handprint and freefall. She was awarded the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize for Drama.

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Reviews for Stoning Mary (NHB Modern Plays)

[ceilidhann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'd read the Sarah Kane comparisons before reading this play so had a vague idea of what to expect. I think Green has a more distinct style than Kane, and her command of language is particularly evident in the scenes with the couple arguing over who gets the prescription they both desperately need. However, when it comes to the aims of both plays - to demonstrate the universality of cruelty & tragedy - I think Kane was much more successful with Blasted than Green is here. I would have like to have seen Green tackle the cultural background behind the practice of stoning executions, it would have given those particular scenes the punch they needed. As it stands, Green's choice to use an all white cast and set the play wherever it is being performed opens up the audience to speculate over how they would cope if such conditions were to occur in the developed world, much in the same way Kane tackled the thin walls between the developed and developing world in relation to war. I understand that it's incredibly unfair to compare the two playwrights but the relevancies here felt too obvious not to discuss. It's not an easy play to read because of the way in which the dialogue is written but it's a strong continuation of themes so common in the theatre of 90s UK

(Apologies for the pretention - it's for my dissertation.)