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torture

CIA HQ, AFGHANISTAN, 2021

In a compound some two miles square, surrounded

by razor wire and guard towers, on a hillside

three miles north east of the airport and six

from Kabul’s centre, are rows of burnt out cars

and pick-ups. Beneath the vehicles

are solidified pools of molten metal.

Elsewhere in the compound are the ruins

of a mock-up village used to train

operatives to carry out night terror raids.

The recreational block is intact.

Inside are unfinished meals and abandoned

games of chess. The detention block too

is intact. Inmates gave it the soubriquet

‘the dark prison’, the cells having

no natural light – nor electric except

when the torturers came.

HEAR THE DRUMS

This full length stage play focuses on Jamila, a sixteen year old girl of mixed Afghani and English parentage: on her struggle to determine her cultural identity, her longing for her father whom she has been brought up to believe is dead but whom she discovers, by chance, is alive and a prisoner of the Americans in Afghanistan – and her confronting the lies and misunderstandings that have had such tragic consequences for her family.

You can download the main text as a pdf:

HEAR THE DRUMS MAIN TEXT

A list of characters, information about where and when the action is set and acknowledgements are also available as a pdf:

HEAR THE DRUMS – CHARACTERS, LOCATION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ETC.

 

 

Note: the play was a prize winner in the Sussex Playwrights’ Club 2009 Full Length Play Competition.