I listened to it on public radio, maybe nine or ten years ago (“The Play’s the Thing,” by L.A. Theatre Works on KPCC). The play was one act, with three (male) characters, and I’m pretty sure the title was The Peace of Westphalia.
A summary of the storyline: In a forest in seventeenth-century Europe (probably Germany), two brigands have waylaid a solitary traveler, and are discussing with him their plans to hold him for ransom. Well, one of them discusses it. The other has a severe speech impediment, and the other has to translate for him. The talky brigand also tells the traveler of the paths that led them to this way of life.
Both men had lost their families and livelihoods to the fighting, which was famous for devastating entire communities of people who only wanted to make their livings in peace. IIRC, they had each spent some time as soldiers of fortune, but circumstances had fallen to a point where they were no longer able to feed themselves, so they had turned to highway robbery.
The traveler, whose initial attitude toward the men had been characterized by indignation, anger, and contempt, begins to see them as human beings, and even starts to understand them (this is illustrated when he says he understood a monologue by the “mute” brigand, who told the story of how his family had been slaughtered at Magdeburg, while he had his tongue ripped out).
The traveler then reveals what he thinks his captors will consider good news: He is a courier, delivering one of the signed treaties that comprised the Peace of Westphalia, promising an end to the Thirty Years War, and the suffering that it was wreaking across Europe.
The brigands then conclude that a peaceful Europe is not a Europe that has any place for what they have become. So they shoot the courier and throw his body into a river.
The end.
The problem is that I can’t find anything on the internet that gives information on this play (authorship, date of publication, availability of performance rights. A more complete plot summary). Anybody have any ideas?
TIA 