The Designated Mourner
by Wallace Shawn

"THE DESIGNATED MOURNER is highly unconventional, much concerned with matters of politics, culture, and human significance…There is quality in Shawn's writing—imaginative verve, quiet intensity, a sort of Puritan sensitivity or a blend of them all—that reduces objections to a quibble…This is a playwright who does not just tell you what it is like to be arrested at night by goons or to fall morally apart and become an aimless yet weirdly contented ghost yourself. He has the originality to make you feel it.“ —The Times (London). ”Strange names and even stranger play, but one which worms its way into the consciousness long after the performance is over…unsettling, ominous…the fastidiousness of the language and the detached tone in which horrific events are recounted exert a hypnotic power.“ —Time Out New York. ”A fascinating play with beautiful passages of writing…"

— Variety