- Horses,
- 2017
- 2 male - 1 female
Playwright: Pela Soultatou
- An unnamed country has been trapped in an unending civil war for almost half a century. The Veteran lies bedridden in a single room of a bomb-damaged hotel requisitioned by the army as a residence for disabled war veterans. He listens to classical music on a record player, but the record is damaged: the needle keeps sticking and the melody repeats endlessly. In the next room, the Officer becomes irritated, bangs on the wall and demands that the Veteran remove the record. When the music does not stop, the Officer storms into the room, verbally attacks the Veteran, mocks his condition and threatens him. A Volunteer tenderly cares for the Veteran in his wheelchair while telling him beautiful stories from her life. She says that she would like to become a historian and collect only beautiful stories. Blindfolded and under interrogation, the Veteran recounts his life in a delirious monologue. He is the last survivor of “the events at Horses,” whose truth everyone is desperate to uncover: some regard what happened there as a solution, others as an atrocity. A Woman finds the blindfolded Veteran asleep. She wakes him and asks what happened, and he reveals fragments of the story of Horses. The Officer accuses the Veteran of betraying state secrets to an agent and reveals that the famine and cannibalism at Horses were the result of an organised plan. His phone rings. He learns that the enemy has abducted his children, raped them and is preparing to cannibalise them. The Officer rushes out in search of them. The Veteran is left alone. Outside, a light rain can be heard; over the loudspeakers, a patriotic poem. The damaged record begins to play again. The needle sticks. The melody repeats in an endless loop. And then something unexpected happens…