The characters are Howard, Jack, and Judy. Judy and Jack are married to each other. Jack says he met his wife Judy when he was trying to buy a pair of pajamas. Howard is Judy's father and of course he is remarkable but that does not mean that Jack wants to be a disciple. He does envy Howard and the whole gang of them, the unbearables. The couple moves to their own apartment but Howard is sick and can not be expected to live by himself. Jack describes the places Judy loves as tropical nightmare zones.

Jack wonders why he walks around in a stooped posture and why there is an intolerable noise in his head. Jack reports that Howard is a rat himself but that others begg him to be their leader in their war against rats. At a point when Jack is misbehaving mildly it comes to him that he can not stand Howard. Jack leaves. He has an affair with Peg.

Jack says, "Maybe my problem was just having been very unhappy--you know, unhappiness being a cold sort of marshland in which other emotions refuse to grow." He says that everyone wonders if magnificent success will be achieved and if there will be marvelous self-expression. Jack calls his diary Experiments in Privacy. When everyone from a tribe dies out, there has to be a designated mourner to mourn the last survivor. Jack feels he is the designated mourner.

The writing is bright and new. I would like to see this acted.

Perhaps most impressive about this work is that Shawn has profoundly dramatized his theme through character. His ideas about the decline of high culture - and who prospers, who gets along, and who perishes because of it - are always vibrantly present, because they are told through the characters, all of whom are fully realized and ambiguously sympathetic throughout. Mr. Shawn has written real human beings, not cardboard allegories; and he has set them, via his graceful and succinct language, within beautifully evoked environments. The experiences of the husband as he leaves the high for the low, and his resultant dehumanization, are etched brilliantly. He moves from his intelligent wife to a younger, simpler woman, to a mangy dog, to what he refers to as his "little friends" - images in adult magazines. The endings of the writer and his daughter are even darker, and they are told in beautifully evocative yet simple language, in direct contrast to the ugliness described. It should chill you to the bone.

"The Designated Mourner" was performed last year in New York for a limited run. It was (here comes the hyperbole) perhaps the best piece of theatre I've seen. If it's performed again, make every effort to see it. In the meantime, content yourself with the film version (directed by David Hare, with great performances by Mike Nichols and Miranda Richardson), which lacks some of the masterly power of the Andre Gregory stage production, and read and re-read this extraordinarily resonant text. Shawn elevates our own civilization by superbly dramatizing how it could (may?, will?) plausibly fall apart. He is undoubtedly the most exciting playwright working now.

By all means buy this book, and try to see A Designated Mourner performed on stage if you get the chance. You can also rent the recently released video of the London production starring Mike Nichols as Jack.

As you watch the drama unfold you may cry for the death of love, the death or art. Or -- who knows -- you may feel as if trapped in a humiliating nightmare where you have to watch yourself betray what you value most.

Far, far scarier than the most ruthless death squad is the creeping suspicion that you may actually have less in common with Howard (who dies for art and social justice) or Judy (who dies for love) than with good old Jack (who chooses to live on happily without any of those things.)

Or you may decide that each of the three characters mirrors an aspect of your personality. In that case, the work may reflect a dazzling light on a central drama of your own existance, your internal stuggle to order your values and to express them as you live on in a world which, increasingly perhaps, really couldn't care less.