Doorways and The Club
Doorways by Charmaine Kendal is the English winner of the 2014 Maskew Miller Longman Literature Competition. It is a play about Avu, a Grade 12 girl who has taken her own life. She arrives in an after-life world guarded by The Sentinel. He reads from a book of records of people's lives, and sends them on the relevant path to the judge. Three other characters from Avu's past also arrive. In their conversations with The Sentinel, the events leading up to her suicide are unravelled, and one sees their part in her death. The play deals with themes like taking accountability for one's actions, facing consequences and friendship. In The Club by Stephen Finn we meet Gaga, a bully who is in deep trouble after hitting another boy with a club. But is there more than one club? And who's the real bully? This play explores the dynamics of bullying in high school, with the characters representing types that will be familiar to all readers. Although tense and often dark, The Club is interspersed throughout with much humour and ends positively.
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