The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning

Tim Price

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781408172889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

It's 2011: Bradley Manning is the 24-year-old US soldier accused of releasing 250, 000 secret embassy cables and military logs from the Iraq and Afghan wars. After nearly two years in prison without charge, Manning now faces a court martial, accused of crimes that could mean life in prison. But just a few years ago, Manning was a teenager in west Wales. How did this happen? And who is responsible for this radicalisation? Tim Price's extraordinary play tackles one of the most controversial political stories of our age, placing it in the context of other great Welsh radicals, from the Chartists to Aneurin Bevan. The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning was performed by National Theatre Wales across Wales in April 2012. In 2013, the play won the James Tait Black Prize for Drama.

Scene Sixteen

November 2008/2003.

Boston University hackerspace/Tasker Milward V C School.

Tyler I want you to meet some of my computer geek buddies. David!

A group of BU students sit around, checking out hardware.

David Oh hey! Tyler.

Tyler This is Bradley. This is more his kind of thing than mine.

David Okay! Are you familiar with the open software, open hardware movement? ‘Builds’ is a space where students can advocate for that movement as well as a space for student-led DIY learning to take place.

Beat.

So! Hang around, check things out, if you’ve got the know-how, share it. We’ve got the Open Organisation of Lock Pickers coming along to do a demonstration later, and Free Software Foundation dropping by to talk to us too.

David moves on.

Bradley I want to go home.

Tyler We’re here for you, this is your thing. You need to meet other geeks and I don’t know. / Make some new friends.

Bradley They’re all students.

Tyler You’re smarter than all these people put together.

Kyle Hey?

Tyler Hey.

Kyle Kyle.

Tyler Tyler, Bradley.

Kyle What happened to your face, man?

Pause.

Tyler He’s a soldier.

Kyle You’re a soldier?

Bradley Intel.

Kyle Wow! Check out this red robot mouse I built.

He produces a remote control and drives a robot mouse into their personal space.

Bradley, Tyler and Kyle look at the floor, as Kyle reverses the mouse, turns it around in circles, sends it back and forth.

Silence.

Tyler That’s great.

Bradley Yeah great – work.

Tyler and Bradley drift away from Kyle.

Bradley Can we go home?

Tyler Seriously?

Bradley I’m about to lose my job and my one chance of going to college, and you bring me to a place full of people getting computer science majors and all they’re doing is building fucking robot mice.

David overhears this.

David So! Bradley, how about you come meet Alison?

Bradley Um, I don’t know.

Tyler indicates for him to go. David brings Bradley over to Alison’s group.

Tyler drifts away from Bradley and joins another group of people who are sitting around debating and drinking from red plastic cups.

Alison Levy outlines six hacker ethics. ‘Access to a computer and anything else that might teach you how the world works, should be unlimited.’ ‘All information should be free.’ ‘Mistrust authority – promote decentralisation.’ Um, how many have I said? Oh – ‘Hackers should be judged on their hacking, not on anything like education, race, sexuality.’ This is my favourite: ‘You can create beauty on a computer.’

David Six?

Alison Fuck, man.

David ‘Computers can change your life for the better.’

Kyle’s mouse darts past the group, followed by Kyle running after it. Everyone watches him exit, chasing the red robotic mouse.

Silence.

Alison I said the thing about not judging anyone, right?

David Yeah.

Alison Where we are now. This is the Mesopotamia of hacking. MiT, BU sort of.

Everyone laughs.

Hacking, cyber activism / this is where it all started.

David Is she doing her enlightenment / schtick again?

Alison Yes, I am!

David She always / does this.

Alison I’m sharing information!

Everyone laughs at the in-joke.

Okay. When Gutenberg built the printing press it took thirty years for the first porn publication and a hundred years for the first scientific journal. We’ve had our cyber-porn goldrush. Now it’s time for our global enlightenment. The printing presses tore down the self-interest of the church in Europe. Web 2.0 will tear down the self-interest of the corporate state.

Beat.

I’m asking how do we do that?

Bradley Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you knew.

Alison No I’m, I’d like to know how we do that.

David I think it’s something do with reverse engineering. Have you seen the lock-pickers over there?

Bradley Yeah. what’s that about?

David It’s symbolic.

Alison Is that like a metaphor for hacking?

David Shazia! Tell these guys about locks.

Shazia hands a lock to Bradley. She gives him a pin.

Shazia Hey? So, you guys ever picked a lock? Okay. So there’s a mechanism of control that you have to work backwards from.

David What do the locks represent though?

Shazia Okay. So when you pick a lock for the first time, you learn that the only barriers in the world, are psychological. You hold the key to your life, not corporations, parents or university administrators.

Alison And so, the more people who start to think like that …

David The bigger things we can reverse engineer.

Bradley Like what?

Alison Anything I guess?

Bradley pops his lock op...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Premiere cast list
• Characters
• Author’s Note
• Contents
• The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• Scene Nine
• Scene Ten
• Scene Eleven
• Scene Twelve
• Scene Thirteen
• Scene Fourteen
• Scene Fifteen
• Scene Sixteen
• Scene Seventeen
• Scene Eighteen
• Scene Nineteen
• Scene Twenty
• Scene Twenty-One
• Scene Twenty-Two
• Scene Twenty-Three
• Scene Twenty-Four
• Scene Twenty-Five
• Scene Twenty-Six
• Scene Twenty-Seven
• Scene Twenty-Eight
• Scene Twenty-Nine
• Scene Thirty
• Scene Thirty-One
• About the Author
• eCopyright