Scratching the Surface - Softcover

Mark Wheeller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0957565925 ISBN 13: 9780957565920

Publisher: Pping Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

"Mark offers a unique, poignant & respectful treatment of a difficult subject. Everyone can benefit from his ability to encourage an audience to empathise in a society which is becoming self-indulgent & egotistical."
Carly Sterne: Head of Drama, LodeHeath School, Solihull.

Scratching the Surface, the new verbatim play by Mark Wheeller, dramatizes his interviews with Rob, a young man who, as a teenager, self-harmed.
Mark chats to Rob’s family as they reflect on how traumatic it had been to live with this constant “elephant in the room” as they describe it.
“I was waiting for the screaming as I thought he’d be swinging from the rafters.”
Mark then went on to talk with a youth drama group from a school in the Midlands. This encounter was equally shocking as gradually all of them admitted they had either encountered someone who had self-harmed or had themselves self-harmed.
One thirteen year old described it as “the mouse in the room”:
“You feel like a small helpless being, to the point that you’d hurt yourself and
everyone around is different to you.”
At the end of the play Mark signs off by saying: “This experience of talking to you has been remarkable for me. I had no idea there was this kind of passion behind this topic.”

"The production was urgent, impassioned and committed... So much invention and interpretation had been developed by the director...you accepted the challenge with relish. It was a strong, direct message to the audience not to be passive, to take notice, to do something."

Edition details

• Publisher: Pping Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0957565925
• ISBN 13: 9780957565920
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 62