KIDNAPPED

A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS FOR SIX PERSONS

BY MATTHEW LEE KNOWLES

2010

Props etc: Envelope Ball Working radio Plastic bag + plastic cups Tea making facilities Projector + Slides (Eadweard Muybridge - The Horse in Motion) Bike Plant + watering can Metronome Pen (with clicking lid) Bright hand held light Newspaper + scissors Apple Light bulb + black paint + brush Recording of Verdi, Lacrimosa, from the Requiem. Recording of Schubert, Fantasie 103 (f minor) piano duet.

These six persons do not have names, they present monologues often from several different points of view, they are merely the shadows of the people they represent. For this reason, it does not matter whether the person is played by a man or woman. There are suggestions for activities throughout (eye holes in newspaper, plastic bag crushing etc) these can be modified or missed out as it is felt appropriate. Very little movement is required, unless specified or thought crucial by the director/actor. Each act should be characterised by a different setting of lights, which remains throughout the scene.

Below shows the quantity of speech for each person Person Person Person Person Person Person B D E A F C - 1,400 words (30%) - 1,146 words (25%) 811 words (17%) 649 words (14%) 514 words (11%) 127 words ( 3%)

ACT I

Person A Cover the front part, they say they live there and well, three will surely die. Already, by the two open windows. Person B Eventually the placid plateful had come as the tiredness, eyes in the droop and hang. I hope you slept well, we said. Person A
Person D seals an envelope then throws a ball in the air and catches it.

Him in the back of the car, having his right, for ages, as if an elf had it. Was about to be like man, seemingly, chiefly in charge. We had planned with wild recklessness. Person C We all agonised around him, an ambulance was on the run. With his big head, they do a shot. An incidence with two, clear, hands. If its under fifty, it would do plenty, if its instructed We looked at the back seat.
Person C turns on radio, changes the dials often and quickly, finding static.

Person B Eventually, he is gone. All messages, he said. I, who do you wish? I nodded. It was too late to be done. The boy was not frightened, he began to pace, wearing him. The crowd stood, even the tumbleweed was unsure. His letter became their target. The garlands became this mess.

Hundred and fifty suitcases, I see hidden for the firm's reputation, for the lawmen resolving a kidnap, in the time its being the most lowest of profiles and a minimum of them were, were running an era, another one, for because of visibility through the coffee. I got the boot, of course. I was down - an even back, the Italian wish, enough to be understood at least on the dusty allegations from the tried, tired allegations about me. With an eventual house, determined lab and manageable agitation. Be. Gradual. But. Person D But do as was sorely done. I started the earth so he would look patiently at me. I being of face had being examined at the villa before I had to deal with the carefully informed details, now the theory of edge frequency. Court the earth with friends, delays kill and bees bite at the same aligned partial darkness. There is nothing on the telephone, but again, he grows. I sat as before in the car, the murals, the silences were a fortuitous instance. To straighten it out of all good men, I found the explanation back again. Come alone and do not explain to be any poorer. Good, I said. Its extra. Demand is a check up to sell the house. Be reassured be not your own satisfaction. A column is also the collection of snuff that made the block. Yes, great, it is if it is pleased, as you are his eyes. The more that drives even a bit, I started. To and to the thing be little more, otherwise her and anyone - I was interrupted. He lifted his - no! They are family, and you could do new and safe marks...
Person C turns off the radio

ACT II

Person E His superiors made you hurry the two dead bodies. Its been, something tight-lipped, uncomfortably tight. I'd set off on my sleep. Clear idea, of the iron, perhaps from the core, and still, after four, the demands she made on me involved been told he shook my very fur. Still, the ears were not fucked, yes, I said. You, then. He wrote me a car of yours, more additions of the night taxi, my affair again. If he is paying that much, sell now the car, I said. Such a huge amount, so truce not and be afraid. Everything to fault too might be taken here with me. I turned to my feeling, and he was in and about with me wanting less his block. Hi. The bloke's on the sting. Hers is in and talking it said. Hers is gloomier there, I can tell. Her end, at the rear, as I drove off, just to see your back. Busy pub, watch me die across the transmissions. Person D On passing the horse to stay by his drain, I hated lonely him now because I could. Who'd lost? Yes, hang on, I came to be away. Rated by some... He read out the details, cutting me short. The pain shrivels as it globes my body. I am of the need to be stopped explaining. An ape would come, I saw that coming. Out through a garden, that he still hides in, because of her, even though they could see each other when she and he had felt hate for it all. I felt nothing deep out clubbing. Two took the butt, after all I was involved all over. It wasnt over and put on, not yet. Do the fences, lay them neat and Ill make no move. No one is merely enlightened, so, when I gesture, you will kill me.

Person E And my keys were those. I waited, and... About, now, it opened, the hotel. This is off the map. I shook and dried his neck. So, still screwed? She was one oar short, useless rowlocks in SAS country. They find out everything from the grey to the can to the hours. Shes a slender wasp, I realised. He would have been too dwarfish with the blue hair, the all-purpose ordinary dark clothing, the plastic body parts - he was, folded shit. She cant have actually liked me, he liked her on curly office furniture, he had been brief. The floor fell out of this thing to the ears on his relatives heads eating wasps. I realised enough was not enough of his small part. I can't be recovered. The sky was normal as well as strong and resigned. The car? I'll make sure, the market at the back of the shrine, go and do that kidnap. Crumbling down, he was a student to the spade, left out poor thing, on a chair, our poor thing. Identikit pictures haunt me, toys... all adding to the record. I want to be worthwhile to show... oh. Faint relief squeezed onto a minute tree. It has walls? Three sides. Do you always wave? She returned in the public, as she earlier had. The bed obliterated by the darkness. Nature already rusted her, over there as if delicately placed, the closest possible position for my shell. A short pause bet the bitch can chat. Prove you made it. You scared of him? Youre scared of him, all throaty having been slyly worked on. That dark policeman you saw No one else is ready to use your head? To get his way he led the way his effing four-four technique and an indescribable lecture. From the start I took him in the radiance, from steps owning sunshine of loving. That said, we were spinning, the room was dazzling and returned to her, but not him. Some o'clock, the door opened.

We were hot, I went for a stroll, muscles aching and the psychiatrists surrounded me, as if they expect me to come out and follow their lines.
Person A fills a plastic bag with plastic cups and crushes the bag,.

Stretch the hailer, soft hands drooping. Lie face down, himself massaging the stretched words stretched. The wretched truth we plump for, if he would only retreat. Person B I asked not to be shot. Good pulls are good of course, with ice as the tense dies. Pair of onlookers at some oclock. One or two drinks? We shook in early shade. Its the case Its in a month
Person F makes a cup of tea, perhaps crying a little.

Kidnapper? Me? Who and where were we, when the two wishes were made? She kissed me preciously, for years. Planet or hill, the stirrups.
Eadweard Muybridge's "The Horse in Motion" is shown projected though the actors onto a wall. These 12 slide photos should change approximately every 3 seconds, with a wait of about 8 seconds after each set. The projector should be amplified with speakers close to the audience, preferably within the audience.

Discarded thoughts, never consciously noted affections. What? Riding the parts of Britain, oh, they were grooms, once grand, out of grandmother's blood, a tennis pro with subterranean horses. They could be titles of the sea at last and never again. The earth frowned. How modern and English is my mind, the Italian asked. Her trampled eyes shot up, arms folded around, only to introduce some tissue specimens, she swallowed, she moves not mad, I'm behind days, I put down once to go to a doctor. We went twice, or at least wanted to. Well done, is that grandmotherly octogenarianism? I didn't just come to be walked all over, wasn't just that the... I'll untie a war in Europe

If you want me by the edges, a husband is just my chore. Brown still, even after Vietnam she had suffered dreadful eye memories. We enjoyed coffee, but the child within was very quarter minded. In one tent, he broke him, she didn't know. As his trainer she often did that as well. Its when here, in Lambourn, all up the house were taxed windows. It's one previously owned. One what? One eye, the fear of its practitioner. No, Im too scared of races. Perhaps she's scared of me? She was rightly worded, but I've being unable to be, not unlike the sort of person against breathing in the open air. Perhaps. Yes, and, up. Yes, I do. Custody. You've got it. Truly not the fault of the banks, so I am to be relieved of one such money... Then she can be with me, a surrealist, for a week I'd studied lectures by her, in the past This chance to miss, that I am nondescript. My own and it was our will. Time engines are nothing, I nod, its still one? The kid detected and bribed a stupefied cunt. In it he managed the streets of having his daily walk. Kidnapping was, and still is, the arse. Santo, he came from the Santo instance. Andre went back content and clean, we with our heir back in line, almost a good boy. Slash off the sloth, the round grey one, I walked over on clouds of silicon by the sea.
Person E makes a cup of tea, without expression or emotion.

Im over. Im isolated. Does one name their haven and charm natures cardboard box? What am I? Person F Now goes clear, thousands every year. A countable few,

some really fucked, had taken all the pay of those there, like the oppressor of the species, doing little even whilst God was concocting his way to our undoing. He moved, of a sort. Evening at eight knows the City. Time has neither he nor I. Whimsicalness more thorough could test the chemically obsessed kidnappers this way and be considered and forgiven the markings we sometimes make. She is my life from the time where his life was fulfilled. Anyway, we made frustrated gestures. Same iPod, with the same job always preferring not to not run after all the perpetrators. About fifteen hundred in total had me shuffling out the bank. I, she, he, they topped the chart and watched. She turned and did actually kick herself. They came in. I can't bear... their eyes I stretched out, putting all vastness aside, I had a feeling of yesterday, it felt
Person F now sitting on and speaking from a bike.

Thank me for it. Say amen, up, it. Call it and feel lonely for waiting. Nodding and conferring. Don't sing! They get to the slippery top where pa and his daughter in any similar observation wouldn't condone this.
A single bright light shines and all other lights dim to almost nothing.

Person B Himself looked slightly awry. He had agreed the widows and girl's safety, and only now, the kidnappers release. Not every roundabout does things that way round. Exactly! The capital colour of a watcher is tan golden red, they described it is afterwards, at their desks, trumpets of vengeful anger, far from the bugle, the drop to the lowest key, and a moment, a hundredfold.

That's all years old now. My brain is had by that.

ACT III

Person F Half of me in plain clothes at my villa, where he was found, way out there. Not since him did it appear. Person D I was Person F the dreamer at school, of ideas, obscure and small, so full the mind, laying back as I said that. Out with the pieces to widened articulation. We could see, from the height, what he sounded like: A gruff voice, with random croaks, endlessly departing. He didn't see into transubstantiation, Saturns rings feel the same wherever you are. If they are with, and with only everyone, who will cut his losses? Until her thought that hope is many times fear to the victim, yet they were only for her. Person A Also with love, as most were. The years inch past his friends. Never with his losses, to his faith, might have more normality than had gone before. You would receive radio from him, had he persevered I heard little of themselves in it and she did go to and fro, staying out of the rain, after going far enough for him to be spiritual. I suppose I am looking, only for you he precisely slowed his boredom. Not sticking to the western hemisphere but enduring from it of the necessity?

Person E All is said. We might go but they took over my kitchen. It is into my reaction, particularly of eyes, with a short looking me. Her nuts slide in friendly silver, wished and tricked into paying me. Person F Local law, but - are you alone? He wishes. No. Are you? Yes, guard me. What's the... Yes or less, he wanted me to... I want you to be content. They signed on a lab number then looked blank, then I looked blank, that is, except through these fifteen things, all arranged Still looking blank. For it to go straight to this office, in that box? I asked, existing as a tide. No. They wanted their way. They grassed over each photograph. His voice and he shook hopefully. Person D For this, for that, very nearly a second chance... This time I act alone. Once out I would regret it, when any world can be ours, like a word that rafts and spirits in evidential meetings. Win letters of variety to ritualise the soul. He also said he sold Indian rugs to his parents and got every window in return. They were all equally passionate in that house. Person C Go to his scooter and publish yourself with a werewolf out of the car park, for the bitter good and for the emphatic bad. You could visit the Isles the... yes... oh. Person B The same male voice, devising by print.

To say eleven in might, is to see them by night. See them, as a whole. As one does see him. He was, he seemed to be beginning to or at least, he didn't care. Then one day he told me the food was contaminated. Some showcase I said, your grand opus, in the watery glow. Sorrowful minnows grouped behind me, but we went on sitting silently in the afternoon. Good as the gust, as the police waited, turning and phoning the prescribed read. Pasta? What size? Her full laugh departed instantly. I've been there, on holiday.
Person D waters a plant and switches on a metronome to =66

Hundreds of them, wanting a tube or boat, tuned into the cosmopolitan disturbed devotions. Anyone there who you can put it to? I look, boasting and chugging noisily, alas it's been nice. With his napalm and the cure she'll be comforting him with, having him browse with a reluctant something. Yes, I'll tell all in return, in out it is in on its head all rich about youll not have to find a head to line, you would perish of the engine. Person C Lips we go for if comes serenity to my dungeon. Person B Horse people stay crooks. OK. Drawings came. He grunts. Head to this yard, still grunting and listening near Yorkshire, its worth the professionalism. The wretched became those with gleaming lashes springing out barely visible, eye engines, from hair tousled, entrance across a hexagon.

She'd have little to do with the mouth of a bee.

Person B makes a cup of tea and drinks it.

Person A We walked with continuous contact and in the way of new radiance, of discriminate rejection. These endings he had told us defy thorough procession directly via a hundred million upstairs eyes. Person D
Person D clicks pen lid over the next block of text

And I was spent. Herself? Drugged probably, she sleeps for hours, with held eyelids, held with metal. In his belt that was given to him was lined the line of nine lies. To the fives and lives of the English, with quasiperiodicity, but when I then profess, they, the superiorities, become his office wedge, the detective born to be nothing else. I own the key - him.
Person D suddenly stops talking and looks toward the door, which makes everyone else look as well. Person D continues talking, nervously at first, picking up momentum, gradually getting back to the play.

I telephoned explaining the conditions, that they were the best. In about twenty hours the city and others will leave with the rest, they will come out there and then, a knife in the system with enough kidnappers, momentarily in shock, what dressing of the death my liege? I glanced at his delusion, what had become of the dark? I leant over the half eaten sacrifice, until there was no trace Person F Turn the television over. Person D I was in fear with control and while he courted an alto...

We were making a desperate attempt. We threatened all grocery stores, seeing that they explained that which could be everywhere, he had nothing to hide. No evening was there ever an empty house. (laughs) Send deep instructions, on suede - that way, do not be without me. Ah. So I will make room, serenity is the aim. My come offshoots, know that it still clung in other parts. You are out of prison. Make a place of where they hit him... you are out of bargains. The threat was taken semiseriously, by radio, but to his own risk. Half psychiatrists would fall from the ninth floor windows, landing in the previous soup. The street outside, from our childhood was without us. We even brought the pockets, going on touch, as in a movie. We also threw off today's matt black, a lugubrious wank for an oily twat. They like the sort of exploitation mentioned earlier. I don't think the head of... The hour of me is edging to your eyes. Move to me. Person F She had risen to his feet. About eight feet, before the ground had gone. Thou with one will not wait knees black as earth normally and ably coming through headstrong.

ACT IV

Person D Drowning for me. What a to-do. Hens haven't paid the heavies. Then, two more tugs, down into milk rolled my love, in dreary disarray. Help me, he wheezed painfully,

making it easier for me. Person A Easier for an appointed son. His speciality was water. He recruited me from a misfortune. He would always be right in the swarm of molecules, looking at me, each time quick. My own big holiday area. Ask any orchestra, about their conductor, and, half under their breath, they say, and on and on they crept.
Any Person turns off the metronome

Smoothly and soon gone thoroughly. My image of industriousness. But, take me for a kidnapped face. The farm knows evening. She paused and soliloquised and nodded tentatively. It would be up to here. It was jammed and I can give only what I would find today. They're outside of the room, outside of the room, I got the reward. The word in a dream. A word which did not withdraw. What heartbeat? I said.
Verdi, Lacrimosa from Requiem played for exactly two minutes then cut off abruptly.

That, then, the one, ugh! Could you She looked for moments within, yes - with the wind thinking so. All this, it's beautiful even if youre down with all hands.
Person A shines a bright light quickly at any audience member.

This by way of said occupation that my car be not or otherwise chosen not in a policed manner or in any form of captivation until it is published and only when I walk down that street with you conditioning with me being me and to buy them some news, yes, perhaps some news of any kind. So that rigorous me can still be me,

as I'm often said to be. That's where the jockeys killed him? Yes, in his office. Person D He was gentle. He got her. Owned it, and where to go. He is there. Don't fall. He tapes out of memory You hooligans dominate them with murder. They talk ape shit. Paid. Told. Click. Me. Stayed. You. Yeah. In money we are nothing, I say. But soon. No. I've heard that. Take her here. Person A So we looked and went off on a start, I could distinguish between Raphael and Michelangelo, I think. No, no, I couldnt. I could however, if I lied. My house is on Mikonos. I've satisfied you. You dont seem to think it a fair swap... Within, you're a strange young child. A hidden something. So... run the upper quarrels, by loves intent, but my greatest emotion can be switched on. I normally have sleep to do. I slept through a move, have you ever done that? Believe my disgustedly abhorrent psyche, he kidded. Eat it, dont pause, Im nodding towards the beach... Just you and me. She is yet to start shaking as I am. Person F We, are in Italy. Person D If yesterday was our course for so long... He stared on, out of the fear.

I fear what and why and tapes of this play forever. He ruffled my mop and hadnt the sort of follow-through. They must have heard the sparrows flying.
Person E cuts eye holes in a newspaper and looks through for as long as they wish.

Riders squabble as if they never did have the inkling to the thought. Strains of stir on the radio, yes? Eating my business, it could be telephoned to me, on the black of my back. I blink, walking at night in low ground. At last, never would I forget. She's brave near noon? She makes no effort at midday. Person C Seconds belong to men, he commented, not to anyone. And then, my hands arrived around his... What next? Crunch! Over. Always take the post, tongues arrive in huge boxes, making my outlook bleak and annoyed. Im glad, there's a good someone in you. Person B I told you... I said to you. I am the male, loud and encased, surprised and vigorous. She, pointing, lifted the receiver. Person D I. Said. I. Said. I. Said. Where. Are. You? English cars go home wearing nightdresses. Right. I ran alongside to the car. It's all so o'er. There was no trauma. You been kidnapped, so, dearest Minutes, not seconds for your husband. Go without him. He... just this minute dressed himself. Reign in the minutes. He said that at the bus station. Wrinkled packet, away on holiday. Give the girl the chemicals. They compartmentalised me, on tape.

Rarely issue a normal tape with no fingerprints on.

Any two Persons kiss spontaneously.

Up.
Person A eats half an apple then passes it to Person F who eats the other half.

Ships too radioed that they had gone astray, far away, to an idyllic bucket and spade island perhaps south of here. By the morning the Spanish were flooded. Everywhere briefly believed in his own eyes Forget me but do not forgive me. Person B Speaking of his huge chauffeur, I would park though it with a knife. Through my like of his fullness, now shivery, I had not started... Put it towards the siege! Person A Grown and yet unripe, trust in me. I would, still with diffidence. They were at the station, his family. You! I pinch myself. They smiled. Arrived at last to collect the particulars Ha! My firm in London sent the whole row to tremendous anxiety levels. It eventually ceased. For five hours had they being overwhelmed, gradually managing to stare into the actual factual physical freedom which for weeks hadn't being expected at all. Even knowledge was headed for withdrawal. Of all, from her, or that, for the ransom But they met in private. Neither had hurt his reputation, saying we'd better concentrate from now on.
Person F paints a lighted light bulb with black paint and looks nervous.

Person E Necklaces for ransom were accounted for in the meeting. Shaking, so that even if plain-clothes men come to torture us for weeks on end, they could sing without trepidation.

of flats with stone or the early attempts... and we shrug at miracles, to idyllic solar events, that's what we do, that's fact. Scholarships and lobsters. No longer warmed to, across the bruised swim. So long. Time. Right, the big mouth speaketh, of years and then snow, along the length of the road. She went knowing it, at least. Empty exfoliating exercises. New you see, almost gladiatorial. Be assured, there's no knives here. The Liberty Market, I sometimes call it. He died of the colour white. Ape of a cock he was. Do the insurance policies make sense to have someone designing origami patterns in front of a dead man? Free-spoken, pre-recorded, alone while he creased the remaining clothes. We were, but you, yes, after the It's not easy, for one partner cant be sure. I wasn't an idiot. You're an idiot. This apparently, in a highly sophisticated environment. Person D Bye. Person E Home, I told the housemaster, having being though the rigmarole and then letting us pass through, shed of certain dry items. Be rumours, of course there will be rumours. Everyone can talk, after all, we need trouble. Person B Ageing for the greatness. The past six years weave into the library corridors. I didn't see it happening. The scene lost me. I lacked the same way of completeness, gestures discouraged me from doing much. We share fewer uniform mushrooms. I didn't find God, she wasnt real.

I'm not glad your first day was uneventful, agony aunt for ebony aunt... sewing her tapestry, ended up in tears unexpectedly. No elephant blinked them away that slowly. Seeing is only partly active. Ill be so effing pissed. Dont go to Sardinia, your poor village is naked, did you slaughter them all as required, there in the open, out in Bologna? I spent about a year.
Person F scratches the black paint from the light bulb.

His tongue. My son was on it, going on again. Effing balls up of it again, I smiled again, the effing tosser was apt to this. The twat up the old road spat at us. Kidnap him and don't transport your prints at the top of the point. He giggles as we lower him downstairs, over and over, that deadly dangerous discord.
Schubert, Fantasie 103 in F minor played for exactly two minutes, when it is abruptly cut off.

We are the smiling lot, the digger and his grave, the subject and the shadow, discarded hugely and very reliable. I don't know how to see life, except quizzically. Truthful. Report. Wanting. Covered. I let off a smoke dot. Aren't I a shit? Person F Wrestled thinking. Chain reaction. You have no idea. I was like, effing not. I've heard the floorboards when its all appening. People like you... Person D Gardening what evil evil had? The boat and where we'd gone?

The tide. I rolled up and tried to explain. The tide! Do me in the armchair as well please. I don't want to! Were safe, while in my mind. I want everyone to know you and your eyes as she folds away from me. Person A Catching dress and grasping glass, the reward of the woman, to send in the class. Perhaps we will, and tossing her a question, I found a reason to doubt it. Person D When I am, as that we were, better than on that as she thought. There was no it and I, just she. We paid to the edge of accountancy.

ACT V

Person A Crossed the room as a martyred ex, as if using me, as if I was the night. Person E Stand what I, the questioner demands. Person D
From this point on, no Person should blink. (if a Person does blink, they should keep their eyes closed to the end of the play.)

And twice more knows exchanges of fear. Of your ransom, giggling nonetheless. That I comfort her and her sinful train, and read its brutality, and picking no one to blame, if yes, then shake me. I minded my illness and decisions and to the weeks that followed, some in, some out,

couldn't tell, not on the dry slight. Step away from my fetish again. Youre some sort, she said once in jest...
Person C turns on radio, changes the dials often and quickly, finding static.

I was the kid, ending the way papa goes on about, about her at home with her preventative wit. Just in here round some poor walking kid. Some woman's kid softly spoke, as I awoke from their straight gate, the classic house of witchery. She had stared at me, then I was scanned. In the street, then the car park, I heard it, but there was no one there. Nothing she could do. Nothing. Person B It was your mother, it happened without me and through it, mostly to herself. The psychiatrists pistol. (laugh) Though as she spoke she had the Northerners follow her with ease. I'd soaked deep in the army. To him it was the pay. Say hi, with the micro send button. Sycophantic motorway behaviour. The hateful hacked are now Italian. You brought some, you lose some. Ive checked on the flights. Yes. Bandits beware... Floating, less as they pleased, much more caring citizens. Maybe they overlooked us. The victims, mere trees threatening the wind. The elm released more from up there than was eer likely. They were unusually busy. Good words and at the end... She still said he had said that the open sports car Stop, its wearing thin, Im gagging to rape, or be raped, I'm not bothered, so I open her anyway, but she screams and flickers home. She had come privately out of the interest of self realisation. What sort of disgusting dwelling resulted from my actions. Oh... shes every stitch on satisfaction, and I increased my report by metres. Up to here was about all. Grinning, loss of colour,

and shriek at the lion again, never having got less. Person F Ill advise the corporation, with their barren prams outside the door. Hordes of betters usually hear, increasingly of a personal response like a snail pointing at the wind. Was that you, were you the tenor? Kidnappers can be notoriously bottled up emotionally. Im in the kitchen, I shouted, as we watched a television van pull up outside
Person F takes the painted/scratched light bulb, points it towards an audience member.

The end

Matthew Lee Knowles London, 29th September 2010