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Play with reality

A medley of relationships where humour sparkles through bitterness

SURPRISING TWISTS From "The Shadow Box"

A play about three terminally ill patients, discharged from the hospital, spending their last days in a quiet cottage, cannot be but bleak. They shadow box with death amidst loved ones who must soon face irrevocable loss.

But Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner "The Shadow Box" is not a black hole. A medley of relationships — square and kinky — between patients and their families has sunshine breaking through the sleet and humour sparkling through bitterness. Rich stuff for actors and directors.

Playwright Michael Cristofer weaves in a trilogy to examine the same reality under differently tinted glasses. Joe is resigned to death, but wife Maggie refuses to accept the truth and hides it from their son. Ex-wife Beverley makes a weird triangle with dying husband Brian's boyfriend, Mark. As she tries to clown her way through desperation, the boyfriend assumes stoicism. Felicity's raunchy songs and bawdy cracks echo in the shadow box. Her neglected daughter is as ravaged in spirit as the mother in the body. The theme can end only in serial deaths, but the progression to that finale is not without surprises.

The last days of the dying emphasise the value of life, laughter and courage. They make us contemplate on the precious, luminous and evanescent beauty of the present moment.

Cristofer's play has weathered its way through good and bad productions, and won awards in its film version directed by Paul Newman. As directed by Mithran Devanesen of The Madras Players, this production brings a cast of veterans such as P. C. Ramakrishna and Visalam Ekambaram along with debutants such as David, to examine the relevance of the play's grim theme in a contemporary context.

GOWRI RAMNARAYAN

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