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Jacob has been sent to the attic in disgrace. One by one family members come up from a party to accuse him of doing a disgusting thing. He sits silently, listening as they reveal more about themselves and their relationships with each other than about what Jacob has done. One by one, they go back downstairs, leaving the child alone with his father. He attempts to create a spark of feeling between them, but wishes in his heart that Jacob had never been born. Unable to reach his son, he descends. Alone now, Jacob hangs himself as music and laughter are heard from below.
24 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
5 people want to read
About the author
John Whiting
59 books2 followersJohn Robert Whiting was an English actor, dramatist and critic.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 2, 2021
Basic Plot: A family tries to get a child to apologize for an unspecified action.
Holy crap, what did I even just read???
This play was short and insanely powerful. I'm still reeling from the ending. Throughout the brief action of the play, we have a family basically berating a child to apologize for what he did. We never find out what the kid did, and the kid never speaks, so the audience is left to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. That vagueness makes the story that much more powerful, as every reader/viewer of the play will be thinking of the things that have happened to them in their own lives. For me, the child's lack of response just screamed of autism, which is very much from my own life experiences as a teacher and parent of an autistic child. The ending is just gut-wrenching.
Holy crap, what did I even just read???
This play was short and insanely powerful. I'm still reeling from the ending. Throughout the brief action of the play, we have a family basically berating a child to apologize for what he did. We never find out what the kid did, and the kid never speaks, so the audience is left to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. That vagueness makes the story that much more powerful, as every reader/viewer of the play will be thinking of the things that have happened to them in their own lives. For me, the child's lack of response just screamed of autism, which is very much from my own life experiences as a teacher and parent of an autistic child. The ending is just gut-wrenching.
Displaying 1 of 1 review