Shocking and beautiful, a powerful play about the impact of a soldier’s injury in a foreign conflict on his family back home.
Wounded in the war in Iraq, a young farmer-turned-soldier returns home with injuries that have extraordinary consequences. Lust, temptation, sibling rivalry and the pressures of the past combine with the struggle to maintain a rural existence.
Jonathan Lichtenstein’s play The Pull of Negative Gravity was first staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of the 2004 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It received a Fringe First Award.
‘heartbreaking’
— Guardian
‘lean, taut dialogue, gasp-inducing plot twists and spot-on characterisation… an uncomfortable yet absolutely essential piece of work’
— Fest Magazine
‘There are hazards in any drama dealing with the aftermath of war, in this case the Iraq conflict as experienced by a farming family in Wales. But Lichtenstein’s sensitive handling of his serious subject matter… gives this play a strong shape and an emotional honesty… It’s a mark of Lichtenstein’s eloquence that we are caught up in the action, sharing their devastation and desperation, as they confront the awfulness of the effects of brutal modern warfare’
— Independent
Edinburgh Fringe First Award
