Image of an Unknown Young Woman (NHB Modern Plays)

By Elinor Cook

She is a young woman in a yellow dress. She has been shot by the police. As a video goes viral, a revolution begins to stir.
Ali and Leyla are panicking - they uploaded the footage and now the authorities are after them. Across town, Yasmin is desperate to know if her missing mother is still alive. Halfway around the world, a woman in London wants to help. As a tornado of dissent and violence spreads, everyone's life is going to change.
A startlingly theatrical look at what happens when it all kicks off, Elinor Cook's Image of an Unknown Young Woman premiered at the Gate Theatre, London, in June 2015.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Jun 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780016214

Elinor Cook

Elinor Cook won the George Devine Award 2013 for Most Promising Playwright. Her plays include: Pilgrims (HighTide Festival and Yard Theatre, London, 2016); The Rehearsal (LAMDA); Ten Weeks (Paines Plough/Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama); Image of an Unknown Young Woman (Gate Theatre, London, 2015); The Girl’s Guide to Saving the World (HighTide Festival, 2014); The Boy Preference (National Theatre Connections); and this is where we got to when you came in (non zero one/Bush Theatre). She also wrote an episode of The Secrets for BBC One, directed by Dominic Savage.

Book preview

cover-image

Elinor Cook

IMAGE OF AN

UNKNOWN

YOUNG WOMAN

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Thanks

Dedication

Characters

Image of an Unknown Young Woman

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Image of an Unknown Young Woman was first performed at the Gate Theatre, London, on 4 June 2015, with the following cast:

Thanks

My thanks to Tom Lyons and Matthew Poxon at The National Theatre Studio; Clare Slater at the Gate Theatre; Clare Couchman and Fay Davies at The Agency; and to Chris Haydon.

E.C.

For Lesley and Jeremy Cook

Characters

CHORUS

A, female/male, any age

B, female/male, any age

C, female/male, any age

One member of the chorus should be female and in her twenties

YASMIN, female, any age from late teens to thirties

LEYLA, female, twenties

ALI, male, twenties

CANDACE, female, late fifties

NIA, female, forties

GIRL IN THE YELLOW DRESS, female, twenties – A, B or C can play the role here; whoever fits age-wise.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

# 1

The sound of a girl breathing through a tube.

The beep of a heart monitor.

It gets louder and louder and then –

# 2

A, B and C enter.

They look at each other and then begin.