Bill Gordon & Peter Vincent

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LOVE AND DEATH IN WHITECHAPEL By Bill Gordon and Peter Vincent

 This is a two-act stage play for five actors. There is one set. The year is 1889.

 Mystery, murder, suspense and deadly wit! What else can you expect when Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, two young men on the brink of success, come by night to clandestine meetings in a house in Whitechapel? This is the house of Jason Cleave, a charismatic but unstable young man who shares their fascination with the macabre stories of Edgar Allen Poe.

 Outside in the dark streets of Whitechapel The Ripper lurks, but there is greater danger within. Both pit and pendulum await the unwary in the cellar. On this particular night a foolhardy experiment takes place, which explores hypnosis and the boundary between life and death, as in Poe’s horrific story of Monsieur Valdemar. In the course of this experiment, Jason Cleave’s young finacée dies.

 For all three men this is a terrible accident.

 But was it an accident?

 As in the classic Japanese film “Rashomon”, the three participants give their separate version of the events of that night. But sometimes only the dead know the truth. Only a séance can resolve what really happened. Only a séance can reveal the guilty.

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