Five Kinds of Silence
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Five Kinds of Silence is an In-yer-face theatre play by the playwright Shelagh Stephenson. It tells the story of a family living under the power of the vicious Billy, who physically, emotionally, and sexually abuses his wife, Mary, and children, Susan and Janet. The stage play is adapted from the radio production of the same name.
The stage version of the play was first performed at the Lyric Hammersmith, London on 31st May 2000. It also won the 1996 Writers' Guild award for Best original Radio Play and the 1997 Sony Award for Best Original Drama.
This play is about control and how the family is bonded by abuse. After so many years the two daughters shoot their father during an epileptic fit.
Throughout the play we start to piece together from interviews with police officials and psychologists with Mary, Susan and Janet, we come to understand what has led up to this event.
We learn how Billy himself was abused when he was a child and his wife Mary who when her mother died was left with her father, who also abused her. The play is co-ordinated in a way to bring out Billy's passively sinister presence, although he is not physically there, he is there in their memories. His abuse to these women have been so horrific that they shoot him twice to make sure.
The play shows how the family have been separated from the outside world.
