Saved
A play by Edward Bond

(NOTE: The following mini-essay contains spoilers for the aforementioned play.)

First thing’s first, I am not easily shocked. Second thing, Edward Bond’s Saved shocked me.

I didn’t have the (dis)pleasure of seeing it on the stage, and it is doubtful I ever will. But merely reading the words on the page gave me a glimpse of something deeply disturbing. Saved is a play that is rarely staged due to its infamous scene: A group of hooligans are messing around at a park. Pam, a young single mother, comes around with her baby in a pram to find one of the hooligans – the father of the child. He refuses to acknowledge the child as his. They argue, she storms off, and leaves the child behind. This is where things get messy. The hooligans begin to tease and torture the child, treating it with less compassion than if it were a farm animal. At first they just pretend the pram is a weapon to mow each other down with. But, soon enough, they begin pinching and punching the baby, then smearing its own shit all over it. Finally, the violence escalates into a game of stone-throwing with the child as the target.

There’s nothing quite as horrific as this moment, but the most shocking thing is the play’s determination to grasp at any grains of hope it can find. Most of the play’s characters are devoid of much humanity but they aren’t inhuman. They are symbols and products of social discord: men and women without jobs or dreams. We have but one ray of hope throughout the play: Len, the dopey but well-meaning lad who moves in with Pam and her parents at the beginning of the play as their tenant. He lingers around doing what he can, not quite friend or family but there nonetheless. He exists as evidence of some remaining moral compass in society and proof of possibility, though we don’t yet know what possibility that may be.

In the final moments of the play, Len is sitting down in the living room with Pam and her parents in silence. There has been conflict and strife. Pam has lost her child but seems to lash out with superficial concerns, blaming all those around her. Her parents have had a terrible fight after years of barely talking to each other. Len is at the center of all this though none of it is his fault. He could move out and start again, but that would be running away. So, he stays. He takes their broken chair and attempts to fix it. It is not easy to be optimistic and it certainly isn’t a happy ending. But it’s a start.