Limbo

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveler returns" has puzzled, intrigued, confounded and inspired humankind since the first reasoning being in the faint dawn of prehistory looked at a dying companion and wondered, "What now?" What happens in that moment of death? An early movie version of Uncle Tom's Cabin pictured Little Eva on her death bed ... and a beam of light slowly descended from heaven and enfolded her like a gentle loving arm. Dante gave a different picture—but his characters weren't sweet little Eva. Many of the world's other great authors contributed their versions of that mysterious moment ... and the thereafter. Jerome McDonough offers a new idea. Suzanne and Hal are driving to work in heavy traffic. Suddenly they find themselves in a dingy room. Mrs. Braunig is fumbling for her key. Denise is telephoning. In a flash they are in the same dingy room, staggered by the sudden change, wondering where they are and why. Perhaps worst of all, they don't know how to get out. Outside, groundskeepers digging graves laugh ... they know. This ensemble play focuses on the way we humans see ourselves—and what happens after death. McDonough says the hereafter is as each of us plans it, that we predetermine our destiny by the way we arrange our lives and imagine our deaths. Perhaps we should say that's what McDonough seems to be saying in this play. "One can never be absolutely sure," McDonough says. Limbo is not a science fiction piece or a horror story. It may be a philosophical study, but each director, performer and audience participant must interpret it for him or herself. Limbo is a two-ensemble play, one onstage and the other (the groundkeepers) working around and even among the audience.