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 The
Shadow Box
by Michael Cristofer
January 12-27, 1990
Directed by Don Shirey
"There are five
different stages that a person will go through when he faces the fact of his own
death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  These stages will
last for different periods of time, they will replace each other, or exist at
times side by side ... but one thing that usually persists though all these
stages is hope."
- E. Kubler-Ross,
M.D.
Within the time
span of one day, the members of three very different families face the one thing
the have in common: the fact that one member of each family is in the last
stages of a terminal illness. Temporarily living in the insulated comfort of
three cottages at a hospice facility, these three families represent a
cross-section of the American family unit.
The manner in
which each individual confronts the impending loss of a loved one is as diverse
as human nature itself; touching, tearful, courageous, angry, blindly hopeful,
and at times, surprisingly hilarious. But THE SHADOW BOX is not about dying, it
is about people, about life, about living until you die rather than dying while
you live...more specifically, it is about eight wonderfully different people and
how they grow through the emotional and psychological stages that lead them, and
those they love, to a gratitude for life and to the acceptance of its
termination.
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