Petrification

The night before the funeral was when he told us that he was getting the lot and I said, I said only then in retaliation, you know, and I am not proud of this, but how Dad had, how he had smashed his glass and cried, cried for Simon when he rang home to tell him how he had failed his exams, how it broke his dad’s heart.

Simon and Sean’s dad is dead. Returning home from London, Simon is shocked to find Sean in a relationship with a man called Aidan. Sean is irritated by Simon’s new cosmopolitan ways. And Aidan? He just wants to be part of the family.

This is a play for anyone who ever left home and comes back to find everything changed. And for anyone who never went away in the first place.

Attempting to find common ground, they head out for a booze-fueled night in Gateshead. Before long they are arguing. What is it about the memory of a childhood trip to Whitby that sets them off? Darts, pints and fists fly across the room, as past and present collide with dizzying consequences.

Petrification received its world premiere at Live Theatre, Newcastle, on 23 May 2016, before a UK tour, presented by Telltale in association with LittleMighty.

Zoe Cooper’s credits as a playwright include Nativities (Live Theatre), Utopia (Live Theatre / Soho Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (adaptation for The Globe Theatre), Longshore Drift (Old Vic New Voices) and Learning How to Swim (ATC/Root Theatre). She has also had work developed or produced with the RSC and National Theatre Studios, as well as with Ovalhouse, Theatre503, Nabakov and the Tristan Bates Theatre. She is currently doing a PhD at Newcastle University and is an Artist in Residence for Newcastle City. She has an MPhil in Playwriting at the University of Birmingham and was on the Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme. She worked as literary assistant at Hampstead Theatre and now works as a freelance dramaturg and theatre education officer.