Fosse: Plays Four

Includes the plays And We'll Never be Parted, The Son, Visits and Meanwhile the lights go down and everything becomes black


In And We'll Never be Parted, Jon Fosse exploits theatre's unique potential for ambiguity: as a woman anxiously waits for her husband, are we watching reality, fantasy, memory, or even a ghost story?

The Son concerns an ageing and isolated couple, whose long-absent son has a score to settle with their meddlesome neighbour. In the oblique but psychologically penetrating Visits, a withdrawn teenager, apparently upset by the attentions of her mother's boyfriend, turns to her brother for help.

The short play Meanwhile the lights go down and everything becomes black, exploring the dilemmas of an errant husband, his young lover and his family, displays Fosse's characteristic compression of theatrical time and space at its most concentrated.