About the Play:

The Error of Their Ways is a full-length drama by Torben Betts. From a playwright hailed as a successor to Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the master of the middle-brow domestic comedy, comes a chilling distillation of the political delusions we see acted out all over the world. Savior of the nation, evil destroyer of dreams, cunning or misguided hangers-on: all these archetypes act out their parts before the chorus of an increasingly fanatical citizenry. In today's world of political unrest, this play's questioning of the similarities between electorate and elected feels frighteningly familiar.

The Error of Their Ways is a shattering re-imagination of life as we live it now set in the
 context of a bloody revolution. A brutal political assassination robs a nation of its charismatic
 President, a man set to save it from corruption in the impending election. The murder thrusts his beautiful, icy widow into the
limelight.
 As the people demand blood and vengeance, she must choose
 between 
the prospect of immense power and her overwhelming desire for the 
assassin. This skewed world spins giddily between the
 surreal, the mundane and a ghastly graphic reality. Powerful poetic language, raw emotion, dark humour and big uncomfortable ideas build a fast moving story about a morally-bankrupt political system and its effects on those who profit from it, those who merely acquiesce to it, and those who oppose it.

The Error of Their Ways received its world premiere in 2007 at the HERE Arts Center in New York City. It then opened in 2008 at The Cockpit Theatre in London.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"...quite shattering impact...." — The Guardian

About the Playwright:

Torben Betts is an English playwright and screenwriter. He attended the University of Liverpool, where he read English Literature and English Language, and originally trained to become an actor, but later moved to playwriting. Early in his career he was championed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, who invited him to be resident dramatist at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough in 1999.