21:30, Tue 21st – Sat 25th November 2023 at Pembroke New Cellars
Michaelmas Week 7

You are a singular stroke of a letter in a word of the great Epic of these Crusades. Your rebellion will be counted as a tremor in the hand of a chronicler. The story has already started; This tale must be written. Do not presume to have a say in it.

A historical fiction drama split between the modern day and medieval crusades, 'Negotiating with the Dead' follows an archaeological team discovering ‘The Templar’s Cross’, a fictional medieval relic supposedly as famous as the Holy Grail. It is a discovery which the archaeologists have dedicated their lives to finding, and now, one archaeologist, Florine, has begun to hallucinate the Crusaders who once searched for the same relic – as she does, the play devolves into an exploration of how faith can be manipulated by corrupt figures for political and personal goals (e.g. expansion of empire, war, power, greed) and how this behaviour is almost normalised in religious institutions.

Winner of the Pembroke Player's Playwriting Competition 2023.