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'Beautiful Child' (2004 play)by Nicky Silver(link)

Posted by Manstuprator on 2025-January-13 20:54:49, Monday

This is a "comedy"/horror story (in play format) by Nicky Silver, a very nelly Jewish gay man born in the 70s.

This kind of shit is NOT what we need, when it comes to publicity!

DESCRIPTION FROM THE SCRIPT PUBLISHER:
In Beautiful Child (2004), the story of a
gay man’s love for an innocent child takes a sinister turn, but here Silver
focuses on the guilt-ridden parents of the disruptive queer son. Isaac
returns home, confessing his crime of pedophilia with an eight-year-old
boy. Isaac’s mother imagines that one of her son’s previous victims has
committed suicide, making her son guilty of murder. In the end, the family
is reunited, but only in guilt and shame. The parents agree to protect
Isaac, but they punish him by [SPOILER REDACTED]...

PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Harry and Nan, a middle-aged couple, are constantly at odds. Harry is having an affair with his emotionally unstable secretary. "Your secretary, Harry?" snipes Nan. "You're past cliché and into archetype."[2] This tone of acid comedy is replaced, however, by deep anguish, when their adult son, Isaac, announces that he has fallen in love with a child. He wants to return home and live with his parents, who have to struggle between their love for him and their guilt and horror at his transgression. They finally come to a compromise, which is almost as shocking as Isaac's offense: he can live with them, but must be [SPOILER REDACTED]...

English [en], .pdf, /ia, 2.0MB, Book (unknown), ia/beautifulchild0000silv.pdf
Beautiful Child - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)
Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York, New York State, 2004
by Nicky Silver

DESCRIPTION:
How do we love someone who falls outside our moral code? BEAUTIFUL CHILD presents Harry and Nan, a couple whose marriage has become a comfortable battleground of witty barbs and infidelity. Everything they think they know, however, is called into question when their son, Isaac, an art teacher and painter, comes for lunch and asks if he can stay. The world’s no longer safe for Isaac, as his secrets are about to become public — he has fallen in love, and has been having an affair, with one of his students, an eight-year-old boy named Brian. Harry and Nan search for clues, desperate to make sense of this horror, alternately looking for exoneration and punishment for what must be their fault. They want to help their son, who was, as Harry ruefully recalls, a beautiful child. They want to love him. But how? And what is their responsibility to the world and to the children in Isaac’s future? Magically, this tragedy brings Harry and Nan closer together as they arrive at a decision that’s terribly painful and magically restorative.

REVIEWS:
“A decade after he captured critical attention with Pterodactyls Mr. Silver continues to shape sentences that have the vibrant, poisoned lusciousness of a John Currin painting. ”
—The New York Times

“BEAUTIFUL CHILD is compelling ... darkly demented, blazingly articulate and cheerfully outrageous ... The return of Nicky Silver’s voice is a pleasure!”
—New York Newsday

"Superb... BEAUTIFUL CHILD exudes a compelling fascination ...”
—Associated Press

“An intelligent and engaging drama. ” —Time Out

--------------

He feels that he is in trouble, and he goes to his parents for help. His parents decide to help him. And to protect him. They have decided on "a final solution" -- but not the one you're thinking.

This excerpt is from near the end of the play, when
the tell Isaac what they plan to do.



HARRY. But we have to.

ISAAC: WHY?!

HARRY: To stop you. We have to stop you!

ELIZABETH: They do.

ISAAC: From what?! What did I do!?

NAN: Oh my God.

ISAAC: I LOVED SOMEONE!

NAN: (To no one.) Victor jumped!

ELIZABETH: (To Nan.) He jumped from the window.

ISAAC: I LOVED SOMEONE! I LOVED HIM! WHO ARE YOU TO DO THIS!?

HARRY: Isaac —

ISAAC: YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I LOVE HIM! AND WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME!? YOU! WITH YOUR MISTRESSES AND YOUR LIES ON TOP OF LIES ON TOP OF LIES!

HARRY: IT IS NOT THE SAME THING!

ISAAC: ON TOP OF LIES ON TOP OF LIES!

HARRY: IT’S NOT!

ISAAC: I LOVE SOMEONE!

HARRY: A CHILD!

ISAAC: A HUMAN BEING!

[...]


SPOILER ALERT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Child_(play)



I'm not sure just what the author is getting at. Is this a "how-to" manual for parents who discover that their son is a pedophile?

It played off-Broadway, for a little over a month. Perhaps it was seen by a few thousand.

A scary thought...

I used to have the script for the play written by Kevin Brown, but I no longer have that computer, and it's no longer available on-line. Too bad...

This play is not a long read. I'm not sure if I'm recommending it or not. It certainly is "a curiosity"...

If you read it, tell us what you think of it!

(TPKA "tyred" would approve of the plot, especially the ending, I'm sure. Sadistic, cruel, ignorant, just plain stupid "pedophile abuser" that he/she/it is. A compulsive liar, too. Believe NOTHING that "tyred" claims!)

M.
Read the play, then think twice before you "out" yourself to your parents!

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRZzrmIdYCEs
... a Jewish gay man, talks of his other plays, but no mention of this play...

DOWNLOAD SCRIPT OF THE PLAY:
https://annas-archive.org/search?index=&page=1&q=Beautiful+Child+-+acting+edition+Nicky+Silver&display=&sort=

  • (https site) https://annas-archive.org/search?index=&page=1&q=Beautiful+Child+-+acting+edition+Nicky+Silver&display=&sort=
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