The Baby (NHB Modern Plays) (ePub)

Rome, 78 BC. The ruler, Sulla, has just died, and professional mourners have been appointed to wail at his state funeral. But Sulla was hated by the poor and the working classes, and the wailers - led by Macu - threaten to strike, with dire consequences for them and for Macu's daughter...

Written in vivid, contemporary language, Chris Hannan's modern epic The Baby is about a polyglot, violent city at the heart of a divided nation.

The play was first produced at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in October 1990, directed by Michael Boyd.

'An epic play humanised by Hannan's concerns for the lives of ordinary people caught up in events seemingly beyond their control' The Times

'A period epic complete with all the trappings you would expect from the great Elizabethan and Jacobean classicists who wowed their audiences with heightened language, earth-shattering emotion, weighty moral dilemmas, lowbrow comedy and disturbing, bloody tragedy.' Scotland on Sunday

'Chris Hannan's new play explores love and the grief it can engender when marred by circumstances. And for the fullness of that grief, add in anger and guilt, distraction to the point of self-destruction, and bewildered hurt that makes flesh feel as if skin would burst, it is so uncontainable. The context is Ancient Rome but the issues are timeless and on-going... touching directly on any place or age where ordinary lives are wracked by power politics.' The Herald