"THE POWER & THE GLORY"

A full length play about a village occupation for 15f & 15m by Tony Breeze ISBN: 9781872758107

A powerful drama based on a combination of two events which actually occurred in different parts of the world.  A small village sleeps in the summer sun at the end of the war, untouched by all that has gone before, when the peace is disturbed by the arrival of a group of soldiers.  The villagers cannot be aware of how much their lives are about to change during the next few weeks as the local mayor organises a dance for the soldiers and one of them is subsequently found dead.

In the second act the senior officer believes that the person who did the killing must have told the priest in the confessional and he gives instructions for him to be tortured to get at the truth.  However they are unable to find the offender and they then decide to remove all the food from the villagers to loosen their tongues.  When the villagers end up starving they begin to revert to their animal state and there are scenes of group savagery.  Eventually the final conflict is between the power of the military versus the spiritual glory offered by the nuns as they serve the final bread and wine.