The Designated Mourner

Completed in 1996, this work is a monologue-triptych in which three artist-intellectuals describe their experiences as their once-liberal country sinks into totalitarianism. A famous poet-intellectual, his daughter, and her husband–people made of very different moral fiber despite their shared highbrow background–observe the subtle and flagrant transformations to everyday life, public affairs and personal relationships as their government brutally cracks down on anyone suspected of subversion. This searing and disturbing drama, prescient of much that occurred during the George W. Bush years and afterward, has been called Shawn’s masterpiece. Its New York premiere, which played at an abandoned men’s club in Manhattan’s financial district, was the most coveted ticket of the 2000 theater season. For this first New York revival, the cast of that production–Shawn with Deborah Eisenberg and Larry Pine–returns.