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Watching Glory Die
Inspired by the true story of a New Brunswick teenager who committed suicide in prison when corrections officers failed to intervene. From the two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award, this play is a bold, captivating portrait of three women who remain helpless in the tight jaws of an unjust judicial system.
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 13, 2025
I always love reading Judith Thompson's work! Before you read this play, just know there are so many trigger warnings so be mindful
October 30, 2018
I read this play for discussion in a playwriting group, analyzing Thompson's use of monologue. I think that her use of monologue was particularly effective in the context of this play, wherein Thompson used it to silo the three speakers, isolating them within the prison setting. The subject matter of the play was quite tragic. I know it was based on a true story, and that the details of Glory's incarceration and death were largely non-fictional. What I didn't like as much was Thompson's three-perspective view of the prison system. Thompson's bias against Grand Valley Institute for Women was evident as of the playwright's note at the beginning of the text. Yes, the prison system is not the greatest for these women. There are systemic issues. They cause tragic events.
But Thompson gives voice to the victim, the victim's mother and a guard. I feel like this is an uneven way to look at the systemic issues facing the prison system. I don't think it is unfair. But I think that it makes the text less meaningful when we don't hear from other incarcerated women, from the prison warden, from other people involved in the death of Gloria. In Thompson's opening, she says that the prison system is especially unfair to Indigenous women, yet the only Indigenous woman in the play is only spoken about, and read to. She is never seen or heard from. I feel as though there is a missed opportunity there.
As always, however, Thompson kept me turning the pages, and kept my heart beating for the characters. I thought that there was opportunity for more, and opportunity for a stronger argument (hence the three-star review). It is one thing to say that a situation happened. It's another to show the systems at play behind the scenes, the forces on the individuals involved; within the scope of a three-handed monologue play, the systems causing these traumas were left to be questioned.
But Thompson gives voice to the victim, the victim's mother and a guard. I feel like this is an uneven way to look at the systemic issues facing the prison system. I don't think it is unfair. But I think that it makes the text less meaningful when we don't hear from other incarcerated women, from the prison warden, from other people involved in the death of Gloria. In Thompson's opening, she says that the prison system is especially unfair to Indigenous women, yet the only Indigenous woman in the play is only spoken about, and read to. She is never seen or heard from. I feel as though there is a missed opportunity there.
As always, however, Thompson kept me turning the pages, and kept my heart beating for the characters. I thought that there was opportunity for more, and opportunity for a stronger argument (hence the three-star review). It is one thing to say that a situation happened. It's another to show the systems at play behind the scenes, the forces on the individuals involved; within the scope of a three-handed monologue play, the systems causing these traumas were left to be questioned.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews