The Designated Mourner
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2011) |
The Designated Mourner | |
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Directed by | First Look Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Box office | $ 63,000 |
The Designated Mourner is a play written by
The film, which follows the play's script closely, is based on the original London stage production directed by Hare and has the same cast: Mike Nichols as Jack, Miranda Richardson as Judy, and David de Keyser as Howard.
The North American premiere of The Designated Mourner was staged in March 1997 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, directed by Les Waters, and features David Shapiro as Jack, Martha Lavey as Judy, and Nicholas Rudall as Howard.
Plot synopsis
The play takes place in what seems to be the present or in the near future, in an unnamed Western country (implied at points to be the United Kingdom) hat is undergoing political conflict similar to what had occurred in many Latin American countries during the Cold War: a ruling oligarchy with fascist tendencies, threatened by a communist guerrilla movement based in the lower class, the former imprisoning and executing anyone suspected of subversion, including writers and intellectuals who have no direct connection to the guerrillas.
One of these intellectuals is Howard, a respected poet who wrote political essays in his youth; his daughter Judy and her husband Jack are also at risk of becoming suspects by association. Jack, an embittered English professor, is the play's chief narrator. He is generally uninterested in politics, but is somewhat sympathetic toward the government's murderous acts for two reasons: he secretly resents Howard as a representative of the "highbrow" culture, and he fears that his middle-class world would be wiped out if the rebels succeeded. As political repressions worsen, Jack withdraws from his family and from reality. Howard is killed due to an arbitrary decision by the government, Judy is arrested and subsequently executed for unclear reasons, and Jack, after recovering from his nervous breakdown, is left as the sole survivor of Howard's literary circle.
There is no visible action in the play or the film; the three characters describe their memories in separate fragments of monologue (as in Samuel Beckett's Play), with brief scenes of dialogue between them.
Though the play is generally more realistic than Shawn's previous politically charged work The Fever, it focuses on the characters' emotional lives and leaves the civil war in the background. As a result, many reviewers of the play and film have been unclear as to whether the assassinated characters were killed by the government for sympathizing with the rebels, or (as Jack fears) by the rebels, for being privileged academics. A close reading of the play suggests that the rebels (if they even existed) have not gained power, and that what has occurred is a
References
- ^ "REDCAT Theater: André Gregory directs Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner".
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
- ^ Johnston, Andrew (1 May 1997). "The Designated Mourner". Time Out New York.
External links
- The Designated Mourner at IMDb
- The Designated Mourner at Rotten Tomatoes
- Radio play on WNYC [1]
- Roger Ebert review of the film [2] "To see this film (directed by David Hare while his stage production was being performed in London with the same actors) is not the best choice. The material suffers by being placed in a frame it is not suited to. It's likely that an audio book of the play or film will be released, and that would be a good way to absorb Shawn's disturbing, introspective, Prufrockian words."
- Entertainment Weekly review of the film [3] Grade D.
- Variety review of the 2000 New York production [4]
- Los Angeles Times review of the 2017 Los Angeles production [5]