A Quiet Place

Prologue 
A fast-moving car goes off the road and flips over. Some of the witnesses who run over think they recognise the woman behind the wheel. Dinah, in her fifties, married with two adult children, dies.

Act I
A small group of relatives and friends gather for Dinah’s funeral: the family doctor and his wife, the deceased’s last psychoanalyst, Susie, her long-time friend, her brother Bill. In awkward conversations/ asides the guests also mention that Dinah’s drinking might have caused the accident. Dinah’s husband Sam seems absent and petrified. Everyone is waiting for the dead woman’s children, who will arrive from afar. Her son Junior has been living in Canada for over ten years. Her daughter Dede followed him there when she came of age. Both live with François, initially Junior’s lover, and now Dede’s husband. This is the first time they are returning to the place where they grew up. Their contact with their father has been severed over the years. When Dede and François finally arrive, they are stared at curiously. Sam maintains a guarded attitude towards his daughter and son‑in‑law. As time is short, the ceremony begins without Junior. He bursts in – inappropriately dressed for the event – just as the guests are reading psalms and poems. After the ceremony Sam’s bitterness towards his children erupts: Furious, he blames them for reappearing after all this time and dishonouring the memory of their mother. Junior reacts by performing a striptease next to the open coffin and declares his father responsible for his mother’s death. The situation deteriorates. Everyone disperses. Junior is left alone in a disturbed state.

Act II
Late at night after the funeral, unable to sleep, Sam goes through Dinah’s private affairs. In her diaries he reads how unhappy she was with him for many years. He finds a sealed letter, vaguely addressed to posterity, but he does not read it and also hides it from Dede, who is attempting to have a conversation with her father. When Dede tries on one of her mother’s dresses, Sam is disconcerted: he thinks he sees the young Dinah from the early years of their marriage. Father and daughter rediscover a sense of closeness. At the same time, François asks Junior to explain his provocative attitude at the funeral ceremony. With a mixture of bewilderment and ironic wordplay, Junior tries to win François’ affection. François violently rejects Junior’s attempts to grow closer. When Junior claims that, as a child, he had an intimate relationship with his younger sister and was almost killed by his father as a punishment, François declares that this is one of Junior’s neurotic fantasies. With the help of François, Junior describes a traumatic childhood memory: a Christmas party that culminated in violence between his parents. François manages to get Junior to fall asleep. Afterwards, he returns to Dede and tells her that he has finally understood how much she means to him. Sam suddenly feels concern and tenderness for Junior, but he cannot express his feelings for his son. He reads Dinah’s letter.

Act III
The next morning, Dede wakes up confused. She wants to make her mother’s garden, neglected for many years, bloom again. At breakfast she persuades Junior to stay on a few more days in order to do so. Brother and sister play some of their childhood games again. François and Sam join them to play tag. When François finds himself in Sam’s arms, the latter emotionally welcomes him into the family to everyone. The letter turns out to be a farewell one, the accident a suicide. In a brief message, Dinah begs her loved ones to accept her decision and encourages them to embrace life and accept each other unconditionally. When Sam adds that the letter was accompanied by Christmas cakes, the general tension is released in a great burst of laughter. Sam begs his children to stay with him for a few days. For a while, everyone is excited at the idea of living together again. But when the question arises as to who is going to stay with whom and in which room, jealousies and old wounds come to the surface. François blames Dede and Junior for only ever seeing their own moods and for not understanding the significance of Dinah’s suicide. He tears up Dinah’s letter. Everyone picks up bits of her message. Junior cautiously makes Sam understand how small and helpless he sometimes feels and how much he needs him. Sam promises to be there for Junior. Dede lets François make a choice. For a while, each of them finds support in the other.

Miron Hakenbeck