KIDS IN THE DARK
Kids in the Dark is based on a sensational murder in Northport, Long Island. Actually, it was an unremarkable murder. A teenager who was high on angel dust, a drug notorious for inducing violent behavior, murdered one of his friends. What made the case sensational is that even though the killer bragged about his crime, and took people into the woods to view the decomposing body, none of the kids informed any adults for two weeks. Finally, a girl placed an anonymous call to the police, but, as she explains in the play, she did so to get help for the killer, who was a friend, not to avenge the victim.
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The adults are full of hypocrisy and contradiction. One teenage boy in the play steals some marijuana from the stash his mother keeps under the microwave. A father who’s fed up with his son’s hostility goes into a rage and throws the kid out of the house, ordering him never to contact the family again. (This is the boy who commits the murder.) And when the cops — symbols of justice — haul a witness in for questioning, they kick the boy in the crotch and beat him up.
