←Recommendations of Barbarian

11/29/2024. BARBARIAN packs a huge punch in such a short window of time. Daniel Prillaman has created a deeply intricate and gory world (something I don't think I've ever seen or read in a ten-minute play). I was lucky enough to catch a production of it with Bump In The Night Theatre's Jump Scares festival.

The second I read the words "VIKING VAMPIRE FAITH CLASH" in the description, I immediately said "Yes, please" out loud. True story. This is a seriously ambitious ten-minute play. And I want more! I'm dying to see what becomes of Edmund. This feels like an amazing origin story that will leave audience members on the edges of their seats!

I have a feeling Edmund is going to turn out fine. Barbarian is an eerie tale that I would love to see on stage. The pacing is precise. The characters are nuanced and threatening. I love this take on the vampire myth. Daniel Prillaman has shown their expertise in building tension in this short play. I highly recommend it for any one act festival.

A brilliant peek into a much larger story. How utterly chilling for destiny to come calling so definitively. Prillaman has a gift for bloody tales that leaves you wanting more. I love how quickly we are in and out of a perfectly rendered world. One that I long to revisit.

In 10 short pages, Prillaman does what Prillaman does best, creating a world unfamiliar yet still relatable to the audience. And, as often occurs in the Pages of Prillaman, a light is shone on the darkest reaches, highlighting fears and nightmares. I love how the "monster" is truly curious about their victim's moral compass and how they cling to the laws of an unseen God. This feels like the beginning of a very cool horror film. A future cult classic.

The one sentence to describe this short play drew me in instantly, who could resist a female Viking Vampire invader, obviously not the priest. The character descriptions had me laughing too, they are spot on and to the point! However I do wonder if Idunn will rue the decision she made with Edmund? But I won't give this away, read it yourself.....if you dare. Oh come on read it anyway, it's great!

Dreams are one thing, nightmares another and our nightmares can cripple or us or make us stronger. Prillaman's beautiful play is about one such nightmare and what will become of Edmond? Will he face his fears and train to beat them, or grow weak behind a force that doesn't even come to his aid when needed. This play had so much for me. Horror, Gothic atmosphere and a villain worth the best of any Grimm's Fairy tale and a young boy that sees his beliefs topple in one second only to (hopefully) gain strength by choosing a new path.

That whole business about "Thou Shalt Not Kill" gets an early and brutal test when a Viking vampire attacks a Medieval English church. This short play has great tension, horror and blood (so much blood!) but it's the exploration of that early concept of sin that makes "Barbarian" linger in your mind long after it ends. How did early Christians reconcile Jesus' teachings with a dangerous and brutal world?
Read and produce this play. Audiences need to be challenged with it.

Ooooooh fun. 8th-century Vampire Vikings?? Are you kidding me? Okay: YES, PLEASE, THANK YOU: What a fun premise, so theatrically devised. Prillaman's keen visual sense transports the reader into this intense world, but it's the dialogue that holds us in tension. Not easy, in a short play, to balance world-building, high-stakes, character and plot, but here ya go, a great example of bold thinking, and a refusal to make another play that takes place in a living room. (Although a living room with vampire Vikings could be great, too!)

Vikings, Vampires, God, Faith, Horror... what's not to love here? Prillaman's bloody good short play scores not just from its steady air of creepy tension, but also from its author's incredibly visual sense of storytelling. A stage manager's nightmare, BARBARIAN will be an audience's delight. I'd love to see it staged.