Perve (NHB Modern Plays)

By Stacey Gregg

An irreverent and unsettling play that interrogates paranoia, ambiguity and innocence in our highly sexualised world.
Gethin has just finished his film course and reckons he's the next Scorsese. His mum is on at him to do her friend's wedding video - before the couple get divorced!
But Gethin is interested in a much more daring project - one that will get him into dangerously deep water, question his idealism and turn his life and that of his family upside down.
Stacey Gregg's play Perve was first staged at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2011.
'Gutsy, polished... Gregg's concept is stunningly good, and uncannily timely... this is a gripping paranoia drama' - Irish Independent
'In her first full-length play, Stacey Gregg tackles very current concerns about the sexualisation of children and loss of innocence' - Guardian

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Dec 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788505130

Stacey Gregg

Stacey Gregg is from Belfast and is a writer and performer for stage and screen. Her plays include Scorch (Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Belfast, 2015; Edinburgh Fringe, 2016); Shibboleth (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 2015); Override (Watford Palace Theatre, 2013); Lagan (Ovalhouse Theatre London, 2011); Perve (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 2011; BBC Radio Drama Award 2012) and When Cows Go Boom (Abbey Theatre, Dublin 2008). She co-created an interactive web installation for CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities). Television work includes Raw (RTÉ), Spoof or Die (Channel Four) and The Frankenstein Chronicles (Rainmark).

Book preview

Stacey Gregg

PERVE

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Characters

Perve

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Perve was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the Peacock stage on 31 May 2011. The cast was as follows:

Characters

GETHIN, twenty-three

NICK, twenty-two

LORRAINE, Gethin and Sarah’s mum

SARAH, sixteen

TAYLOR’S MUM

LAYLA, eighteen

AUTHORITY

Note on the Text

A forward slash ( / ) in the text indicates the point at which the next speaker interrupts.

A word in brackets is usually thought but not spoken.

Whole lines in brackets indicate the less dominant voice in ongoing and overlapping dialogue.

This text went to press before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

Scene One

A graffitied house.

‘Pervert’ and ‘GET OUT’ scrawled across, paint splats.

GETHIN, bright and charismatic, sits on a wall, fiddling with a video camera on a tripod. Beside him sits NICK, genial, drinking from a can. They have the easy banter of old mates.

NICK watches him fiddle for a few moments.