Synopsis
Battered: A Play about Domestic Violence Inspired by Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book is a story within a story within a story. It takes place in a small theater during the read-through of a new play by a young woman, Julia, who has escaped from a violent relationship with her intimate partner. Julia has chosen to write an adaptation of the Victorian poet Robert Browning’s masterpiece, The Ring and the Book, drawn not only to the long narrative poem’s subject of the real-life murder of Pompilia Comparini by her husband Guido Franceschini, but also to the story of the great love between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.
As the main character in this play within a play endures the increasing violence of her tyrannical husband’s abuse, Julia begins to relive her own nightmare. Empowered by the spirit of Pompilia and the words of the poets, however, Julia finds her way to a new beginning, full of life and hope.