The Designated Mourner

Director: David Hare

1997 / 94min / 35mm

Distributor: BBC

Hare brings the cast of his lauded London stage production of the Shawn-penned 1996 play of the same name—Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson, and David de Keyser—to the screen, with riveting results. In an unnamed Western country riven by civil war sometime in the near future, the ruling crypto-fascist oligarchy has labeled all intellectuals as potential subversives. The action of the story is conveyed entirely through monologue, a Shawn specialty, as corruscatingly delivered by Howard (de Keyser), a poet with political leanings; his daughter, Miranda (Richardson); and Jack (Nichols), once Miranda’s husband and Howard’s son-in-law, a recovering aesthete who has renounced the life of the mind. A potent and, some might go so far as to say, prophetic work.

Introduction by John Early and Q&A with Wallace Shawn on Friday, May 15th

Distributor: BBC

Part of Wallace Shawn: The Master Builder