Edward Bond was a British playwright, stage director and essayist of the 20th
and 21st centuries. In the 1960s, he defied censorship still in force in Britain with his plays Saved, which climaxes in the stoning of a baby, and Early Morning. Bond is known for his violent and politically committed plays. He would later use motionless puppets – in The Children (1999) and The Under Room (2005). These dummies allowed Bond to continue experimenting with the representation of violence, by staging brutal acts, directed at them and carried out by characters who were emotionally attached to them. Bond’s puppets are not manipulated. They remain motionless and are thus always vulnerable. What is more, in The Under Room, the violence inflicted on the puppet (called Dummy) is emphasised by a process of distancing, as an actor at the back of the stage speaks and moves for Dummy. Little by little, he is associated with the puppet especially as he dresses it with his own clothes.