Denmark

When the sweeping force of poetry runs into the wall of one family’s incommunicability, something has to give way. Or, at least, such is the premise of Denmark, an ensemble play by Matthew Gasda. Beginning with the autumnally-fading love affair of an ardent young woman and a much older writer, the play quickly reveals its deeper themes: honesty, faithfulness, the impossibility of hiding ourselves, all the ways we still try to do so as the young woman’s family descends upon their beach house and discovers the relationship. No silence remains untouched, no secret can be kept guarded, as this mood of lyrical confrontation impregnates every other relationship as well: husband and wife, parent and child, sister and brother, an individual towards themselves. By the end, the single room in which the play is set almost feels like a confessional, but one in which the words and rituals for expressing pain seem to be lacking, a yet-to-be consecrated space in which penance and love may only ever be hinted at or longed for.