A Patch of Earth

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Genre:
Courtroom Drama
Runtime:
90 - 0 mins
Cast:
5 male(s), 4 female(s), gender-flexible
Synopsis:
Drazen Erdemovic is a twenty-something everyman who faces the ultimate dilemma: am I willing to kill another to save my own life? And can I live with that choice? It's a story that brings the ethnic conflict in Bosnia home to those of us who don't know the history, can't pronounce the names, and can't find Bosnia on a map. The play begins on the eve of the sentencing of confessed war criminal Drazen Erdemovic. Erdemovic is a short 24 year Bosnian Croat with a hip haircut and bad acne scars. He is known to his fellow soldiers as "the crybaby." Erdemovic has managed to fight for three different armies during the Bosnian war and had never killed a soul, until one July afternoon when he and his mates were sent to a cornfield near Srebrenica. There he was taught how to kill large numbers of people in a short period of time. Busses arrived, carrying Bosnian Muslim men. Erdemovic at first refused to shoot, but was told if he felt so sorry for the victims he could join them on the firing line. Erdemovic confesses to killing "no more than 70" of the twelve hundred people slaughtered that July afternoon. Erdemovic is haunted – quite literally – by the ghosts of those he killed. As the play progresses we meet his wife, a Serb who won't allow herself to believe his stories of the massacre, his child who sees the monster he has become, and the people who inhabit his life and thoughts from the little village he called home. Erdemovic feels compelled to tell his story to anyone who will listen. Because he's unable to keep his mouth shut, he is shot and left to die by a trio of his former mates. Erdemovic survives to tell his story to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – and the outside world – in hopes that he'll finally rid himself of the ghosts that haunt him.
Notes:
"A Patch of Earth" is an intense ensemble drama that requires a simple black box set. Shifts in setting are created with lights and sound. The play moves back and forth in time. Most of the action take place in the mind and memory of Drazen Erdemovic. The cast, with the exception of Erdemovic, plays multiple roles. The stage is also inhabited from time to time by the ghosts of Srebrenica's dead, played by various members of the cast wearing similar grayish burlap garments. - Published: The Theatre of Genocide, University of Wisconsin Press, 2008 Productions: - Christ's Hospital Theatre - Sussex, England - 2010 - Orange Coast College – Costa Mesa, 2005 - Tshwane University of Technology – Pretoria, South Africa, 2005 - University of Detroit/Mercy – Detroit, 2005 - Premiere, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo, 1999 - Staged Reading, Festival of Firsts, Carmel, 1999 - Staged Reading, Key West Theatre Festival, 1998 - Staged Reading, American University, Washington, D.C., - The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 1998 - Winner, 1999 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition - Honorable Mention, Writers' Digest Playwriting Contest, 1999 - Finalist, William P. and Arlene R. Lewis Playwriting Contest, 1997
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