Five stages

The Shadow Box is about doing dying right and, in the end, about knowing how to grab hold of life instead of avoiding death. It’s about facing the final frontier head-on, full of grace and gusto.

This Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by playwright Michael Christofer centers around three dying patients housed in hospice cottages on the grounds of a Mendocino hospital. Not only are we introduced to the individuals, but also to their families, so we get a glimpse of how everyone is dealing with the death card dealt to them.

The play relies on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of death—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—with patients or family members in The Shadow Box representing the wide-ranging emotions that go along with the five phases.

In the first cottage is the more typical family unit—Joe (Greg Collet), a man who has reached the acceptance stage, but is being visited by wife-in-denial Maggie (Georgann Wallace), and in-the-dark teenage son Steve (Jim Taugher), who hasn’t been told of his dad’s illness. The second cottage houses amateur artist and writer Brian (Gerald Ooley), stuck between angry lover Mark (Stephen Quinn) and flighty ex-wife Beverly (Sandra McCord). And in the third are bargaining wheelchair-bound senior Felicity (Sharon Malone) and her dutiful yet delicately deceitful daughter Agnes (Leela Kelley).

And there’s an offstage interviewer (Jim Hollister) in the guise of a researcher who asks intimate questions of the patients during visits to the hospital. Though it gives an opportunity for the actors to direct their reflections to the audience, it’s a rather awkward device cheapened even more with the advent of MTV’s The Real World confessionals.

The play is presented in short vignettes, overlapping scenes and small monologues, sometimes with speeches given as other actors are frozen in midstream action. Because of its format, The Shadow Box is a logical choice for Vanity Productions, a showcase of students from the Scene Class of Miriam Gray’s Acting Studio. The term “students” may be a bit deceiving, considering the range of experience and background of the actors. Many have numerous credits in local community productions, while others are more recent to the boards.

This is a talented bunch, though the results never completely elevate above a student showcase. There are moments that highlight the troupe’s acting skills, in particular moving monologues by Kelley, Quinn, Wallace and Collet. Other times, the acting is more stilted and awkward, though the enthusiasm and dedication is never in doubt. But by the end scene, the entire cast comes together to deliver a moving conclusion and closure, bringing forth emotions each of us deal with on our road to death and living.