Conversations After a Burial Playtext

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by Yasmina Reza

Recommended by bookseller Paulina: "Losing a loved one twists our reality in the worst ways possible. For a brief moment we find ourselves stuck in a limbo between the presence and non-presence of the deceased. In this overwhelming feeling of a loss we’re either quiet and motionless, just waiting for the pain to go away, or we flutter like a fish out of water, fighting for survival. This play is about being caught up in this moment, this time in-between; as six people gather to mourn the passing of Simon Weinberg, emotions run high, and tension never leaves the room. Reza specialises in creating a small-scale apocalypse, and so we witness one here as well. Moreover, she avoids defining and analysing, simply letting her characters speak, or scream for that matter. It’s a very raw and honest take on the elusiveness of life and death, and the pain of being left behind."

Simon Weinberg is dead. And, on a November morning, six people gather at his funeral - brothers and a sister, lovers and in-laws. Mourning allows them a special privilege and, for a few hours, they are isolated in another world under a lingering sun, in the shadow of the deceased.

Written by the winner of the award-winning Art, Conversations after a Burial is a savage but richly comic play which explores that ineffable moment of mourning, when the newly deceased is still almost palpable, the moment in which one can maintain the memory of a breath, the intense pause between absence and the return to everyday existence, between loss and life.