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“The Shadow Box won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1977. The play is set in an unnamed hospital with cottages for the terminally ill, and centers on three people (Joe, Brian, Felicity) dying of unnamed illnesses, and their families. The stories are separate, braided together through the device of an unseen interviewer who allows the patients and family members to voice their inner thoughts and fears not exposed in other dialog.
sthurner wrote this review Sunday, April 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The idea is that everybody dies, that very few people want to acknowledge or accept it, and that it's important to come to grips with mortality. Nothing new here.
The strength of this play, for me, is the relationships that develop among the dying and their loved ones. There is a father, wife and teenage son, a man and his former wife and current male lover, a mother and daughter. Almost everyone in an audience would find some sort of relationship with which to identify. Anger, laughter, deceit, honesty, all are explored.
There are weaknesses too. To some extent the play is dated. Thanks to hospice organizations, people no longer must die in an institution. The dialog is peppered with profane language which in some cases might be realistic with angry and terrified characters, but often it feels gratuitous here. And the unseen interviewer seemed artificial, an obvious and slightly ominous device to expose what characters are thinking.
Still, I think seeing this play performed by sensitive actors would make for a moving and thought-provoking experience.”
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