An original script for the stage – Case 121: The Shadowless Corpse plus accompanying essay

Abstract

Case 121: The Shadowless Corpse is an original script for the stage set in a world where metaphysical anomalies occur with enough frequency or impact that they require a branch of government dedicated to investigated such events. The protagonist of the play (‘H’) is one of these detectives and the story follows one of his investigations as he aims to discover the culprit behind a murder that includes one such anomaly – the corpse is devoid of a shadow. The play is a pastiche in style of the film noir genre, using genre conventions to ease the audience into a familiar world of detectives and crime before undermining the assumptions by including the philosophical elements. The accompanying essay analyses the considerations and decisions made during the writing process linked with this frame and creating a cross-format genre pastiche in general