In ONE and THE OTHER, two young men grapple with nihilistic twenty-first century hatred, hatred to which one succumbs, hatred over which one triumphs. From its shadowed depths, the play rises toward the light.
Fourteen-year-old Canadian Zaydan Khalil is abandoned by his father at a Taliban compound in Afghanistan. The boy is gravely injured, then captured in a US/Taliban firefight. He’s transported to the United States military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he is held for ten years without charge. Did Zaydan throw the grenade that killed an American medic?
A life of privilege is no shield against Kerry Long’s darkening aspirations. The gifted, rudderless young man becomes a conduit for the nihilistic hatred of North America’s extreme right. We watch Kerry assemble a cadre of like-minded nihilists.
Playwright Kent Stetson has been awarded the Governor General's Literary Award for Playwrighting and has been inducted as a member of the Order of Canada.
