| Author: | Maura Campbell | EMail: | ibsen3000@yahoo.com | ICWP Member?: | Yes | Nearest Large City: | Boston, MA | Country: | USA | Play Title: | Final Jeopardy | Runtime: | 61-90 minutes | Synopsis: | Something is wrong with the family we meet in Final Jeopardy. Charlie, the oldest son, has won some kind of award – no one knows exactly what and he can’t tell because soon after his arrival at a party in his honor, he is knocked unconscious by his aunt, and never quite recovers because his is subsequently hit, tromped on and shot by various members of his family. Nobody really notices. Charlie’s father, Hirum, and grandmother, are engaged in battle over the remote control for the television, his mother Pearl is busy belittling his sister Dottie about her weight and lack of a husband: “I’m a lesbian, Mother!” “She’ll do anything to avoid a diet,” Pearl replies. Uncle Art serves cocktails throughout, and Grandpa, carefully guarding his chicken carcass from hungry eyes, goads his grandson, Graham, about his obsession with little boys. Final Jeopardy is a play about an abnormal family trying to behave normally. In the first act, the historical family violence is played out as black comedy, but as some characters gets closer to discussing the truth about the past – what did happen that day the family came home from the Yankees game, and who was sitting in the third seat of the car? – the comedy can no longer sustain itself and the truth about Charlie emerges. The second act reprises the action of the first act, but this time it is told as a drama and the tensions and violence within the family system are stark and pathetic. Many events from first act are now revealed as metaphorical, even dream like, and the so-called truth of the past – and Charlie – shocks and resonates and finally makes perfect sense.
| Male: | 5 | Female: | 4 | Max. Cast: | 9 | Min. Cast: | 9 | Media: | Stage | Genre: | Black Humour | Theme: | family issues | Web Page: | | First Name: | Maura | Last Name: | Campbell | Notes: | |
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