Vigil

David E. Kemp is a drama professor at Queen’s University and the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Morris Panych is a writer, director, and actor who received the Governor
General’s Literary Award for his play The Ends of the Earth in 1994.
For Vigil, a two-character black comedy in which a man returns to
“oversee” the slow death of a female relative, he received a Jessie
Award for Outstanding Original Play in 1996.

The protagonist of this brilliantly theatrical play is a shallow
narcissist who uses acid wit and a seemingly callous indifference to
cover the extreme discomfort he experiences upon finding himself part of
a death watch. Deliciously absurd and poignant, Vigil is a play of
twisted circumstances, mistaken identity, and surprising turns. The man
is a superbly written and multifaceted character, while the woman’s
determination not “to go gentle into that dark night” is as
memorable as anything the contemporary theatre has to offer.