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Schrum, Stephen A. (American playwright, assistant professor of communication and drama, 1957-____), "Abducted!"

a 20-minute drama in English set in a Detective questioning room, 1995,

2m1f,

© 1995; script/rights available from Stephen A. Schrum, e-mail steve@mindspeak.com. Cited by Stephen A. Schrum via e-mail, June 7, 1996; Schrum says,

  §  Dramatis Personae The Detective (m), homicide investigator; _____ (m), _____; Mrs. Ross (f), mother of two.

  §  Synopsis “The Detective has asked Mrs. Ross to come to the station to ask her a few more questions about her case. She claims to have been abducted by evil space aliens; and although she was returned, her two children were not. As the Detective asks more and more questions, he finds that there are more and more inconsistencies in the answers. Finally, information on the lake provides the necessary clue, and the police finds Mrs. Ross' car in a lake with the two children dead in the backseat. The Detective presents all the evidence to her, and asks again, 'Why did you kill your children?' She pauses, then finally she admits she did it for her boyfriend. 'He said he wanted to marry me, and have a child with me. He said that my kids weren't his kids, and that we should have our own. I wanted everything to be perfect this time around. My first marriage didn't work. We should never have gotten married. We were too young. But I got pregnant. And we thought we could work it out. So we got married. And then things got a little shaky, and I thought, if I could have another baby, then maybe things would be okay. And so I got pregnant again. But that only made things worse. And I thought about what Carl said, and I realized that he would never really love my kids. And I realized that all the problems from my first marriage were because of the kids. It was their fault. And so I had to start over. I'd marry Carl and we'd have our own kids and everything would be perfect.' She is arrested for the murder of her two children and taken offstage.”

  §  Comment Stephen M. Schrum is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Communications, Department of Communication and Drama, University of Charleston, 2300 MacCorkle Avenue SE, Charleston, West Virginia 25304, U.S.A., telephone 304-357-4800, sschrum@ucwv.edu.  •  He obtained his B.A. at Temple University; his M.A. at The Ohio State University; his Ph.D. at University of California/Berkeley (1998-).

  §  Themes abduction, alibi, arrest, blame, death, disappearance, extraterrestrial, family, infanticide, infidelity, interrogation, kidnapping, lake, marriage, murder, parenting, passion, police, police station, pregnancy, space alien, suspicion.

See also Stephen A. Schrum’s:

“Aliens! 3 Miles, Turn Left,” a 15-minute comic monologue in English set in a farmhouse living room, 1995, 1m

“Changes,” a 20-minute comedy-drama in English set in a bar, 1985, 1m1f

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Page updated July 31, 1997, May 23, 1998, January 28, 2002, by the site Webmaster.