Summary
Cathy asks the group whether they meant to frame someone for the death. Leah and Richard say they did not: they only wanted to cover up what happened. They conclude they might be “fucked.”
Jan and Mark enter with Brian, who is crying. Brian insists he isn’t going to speak to the police. Jan says he has to because the police are looking for him and need him to identify the man. Brian says he can’t and they can’t make him. He says he can’t stand the way they look at him like he is lying. He says they think he’s telling the truth only when he’s crying, but he’s crying because he feels terrible for lying.
Leah wonders if they can maybe do nothing. Phil lays a hand on Brian’s shoulder and says that they didn’t want this situation, but this is what’s happened. He says B must go in. Phil shushes him and says that if he doesn’t, they’ll go up to the grille and throw him in. He says they’ll hold him by the arms and legs and swing him over the fence onto the grille. They’ll throw rocks until he drops through, and he’ll fall into the dark and land on Adam’s corpse. They’ll rot together. Richard and Danny ask if he is serious. Leah says Phil is always serious.
Brian agrees to help. Phil says Richard will take Brian in, and Brian will look at the man and say he was the one who flashed him in the woods. Brian slowly nods. Phil warns the others to keep their mouths shut and get on with things; otherwise they’ll all go to prison. Phil eats his muffin while the others stare.
The action moves to Phil and Leah sitting in a field alone. Leah suddenly jumps up as though shocked. She says she had strong deja vu that they’ve been there before. Phil picks his teeth. She says they’ve been there doing this exact thing before. Phil is unresponsive. Leah asks if he believes they’re doomed to behave like people before them did. He doesn’t answer. She asks if he believes that you can change the world by changing one thing. Phil says, “No.” She says she does.
In Scene Three, Jan and Mark are in a street. In clipped dialogue, Jan confirms that Mark is telling her that Cathy “found him in the woods.” Mark says only Cathy, himself, and Jan know. The action moves to Phil in a field. He is preparing a waffle with butter and jam on a paper plate. Leah arrives with a suitcase. She says she is running away. Phil continues with his waffle while Leah says that he shouldn’t try to stop her. She eventually gets angry when she realizes he isn’t going to try to stop her.
Leah drops her suitcase and sits with Phil. She comments on how everyone, except her, has ostensibly been feeling wonderful. She says Jan released floods of tears at Adam’s memorial. Everyone in the group has been being helpful to people, doing charity work, behaving like heroes. But Brian is on medication, John Tate hasn’t been seen in weeks, and the postman is facing life in prison. Leah says she admires Phil so much for caring only about his waffle. Jan and Mark arrive and say Phil and Leah better come with them. With irritation, Phil puts away his waffle.
The action moves to the woods. Cathy, Brian, Phil, Leah, Mark, Lou, and Jan stand around Adam, whose clothes are torn and whose head has a gash matted with dried blood. He looks at them as if they were aliens. Phil addresses Adam. Cathy says she and Brian found Adam up the hill, living in a hedge. Cathy says it’s like a hedge complex that you have to crawl into. He’s made it more sheltered with cardboard. They say he was terrified. Adam says he wasn’t.
Brian says they don’t think he knew his name. Cathy says she thinks his head has been hurt. Brian rambles about wanting to taste the earth; he scoops up a handful and tastes the dirt. He spits it out and giggles. Brian says it’s hilarious that Adam’s probably been eating earth. Leah says this is good. Jan asks how it’s good. Leah concedes that it muddles things a bit, making it trickier. Lou says, “We are fucked.” Leah asks Adam how things are. He says he knows his name: it’s Adam. Brian starts giggling. Leah asks Adam what happened.
Analysis
Kelly returns to the themes of peer pressure, fear, and exploitation with Phil’s insistence that Brian continue lying to the police, even if it means identifying an innocent postman as a child predator who flashed his genitals at Brian in the woods. Brian’s empathy is on display as he talks about how terrible it feels to lie. In an instance of dramatic irony, the police don’t realize that Brian’s tears are not because he has been traumatized by a flasher but because he feels guilty for misleading everyone.
Showing an ever-expanding capacity for cruelty, Phil threatens to murder Brian in the way the others killed Adam if he doesn’t comply and keep the conspiracy going. With the same style of flat delivery and calculated language he used to outline the cover-up, Phil spares no detail as he invites Brian to picture being tossed into the ventilation shaft and landing on Adam’s rotting corpse. The extreme threat startles Richard and Danny, who couldn’t imagine going through with such a thing. However, with this threat, Phil successfully exploits Brian’s fearful and naive nature.
In Scene Three, more time has passed since the police used the conspirators' falsified evidence to charge the innocent postman. Kelly returns to the conceit of Mark and Jan cryptically discussing the latest development in the crisis. Without using a name, they talk about a male being found in the woods. Kelly invites the audience to wonder whether they are referring to Adam or another of their friends who has been struggling with the guilt of the cover-up.
In another scene in which she sits with Phil and carries a one-sided conversation, Leah continues to grapple with her attachment to Phil, as revealed by her attempt to test his empathy by pretending to strangle herself. When Phil ignores Leah, as usual, she switches to discussing the continued alienation she feels when she sees other members of the group ostensibly atoning for their part in the conspiracy by engaging in charity work. More sensitive members, such as John Tate and Brian, haven’t been as lucky: John Tate has disappeared, while Brian, corrupted by the ordeal of having to lie to protect the others, has been put on heavy medication to help deal with what his parents must believe is PTSD. With these details, Kelly hints at the ways in which the conspiracy has made people mentally unravel.
Fate throws another wrench into the group’s conspiracy when Cathy and Brian discover Adam is alive. In an instance of situational irony, the community has been busy mourning Adam while he has been surviving for weeks in the woods off plants, insects, and small animals. While he is alive, Adam’s brain injury has caused him to forget his identity, and he clearly needs medical attention. This surreal development is made even more disturbing by Brian’s behavior: No longer the crying innocent, Brian acts like a deranged child, giggling and frolicking and eating soil as though living in a fantasy world.
