30 Jun 2025
Enlightenment, by BAFTA-winning playwright Shelagh Stephenson, opens at the Abbey Theatre Studio in July with a chilling exploration of truth, trauma, and the search for a missing child in a world fractured by conflict while probing the emotional cost of living in a fearful, surveillance-driven, society.
In a society obsessed with information and control, Enlightenment follows Lia and Nick, an affluent, liberal couple whose son, Adam, vanishes without trace while travelling in Southeast Asia. As months pass, their grief leaves them open to exploitation from inside and outside the family. What begins as their desperate search for the truth spirals into a disturbing confrontation with media manipulation, political terror and the fragility of identity.
Director of the Company of Ten production, Rosemary Goodman said: “The studio is the perfect setting for this intriguing play often referred to as a psychological thriller. This is not, however the typical whodunnit but more how a dangerous situation can be resolved. By setting it in the round, our audience will find themselves drawn into a tense and spine-tingling drama played out on a minimalist set enhanced by projected images and sound effects. Rehearsals are intense – we rarely even stop for a break as the talented cast of six work hard bring this play to life. I defy anyone not to be on the edge of their seat as the play nears its denouement.”
Shelagh Stephenson, acclaimed for The Memory of Water and Five Kinds of Silence, delivers a thriller that blends domestic intimacy with chilling geopolitics. First performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005, Enlightenment is a psychological puzzle set against a world of global anxiety as relevant today as ever, forcing us to question what we believe and who we trust.
Enlightenment can be seen from Friday July 4 to Saturday July 12 at 8pm, Sunday July 6 at 2.30pm, and performances take place in the Company of Ten Studio.
To book tickets please go to www.abbeytheatre.org.uk or call the box office on 01727 857861.
