The Sandbox

Mommy and Daddy have brought Grandma to the beach in hopes of rushing her into death, preemptively holding her funeral before she manages to die. Symbolism in absurdist theater is deliberately slippery, as is demonstrated by the fact that the “beach” is represented by a child’s sandbox on a mostly bare stage. A real beach is dominated by cycles. The tides rise and recede cyclically pulled by the cycles of the moon. The life cycles of the animals from birth to reproduction to death follow predictable patterns based on these progressions and the cycle of sunrise and sunset. These natural cycles are inevitable and outside of human control, an organic clock that continues ticking relentlessly. The human life cycle of birth and death is also inevitable; Grandma experienced her life as an arc, rising to the point when her adult daughter became her caretaker and then declining. At the beginning of the play, Grandma has reached the end of the cycle, which mirrors the beginning. She cannot walk and has reverted to a preverbal state.

But the beach in the play seems to exist in a liminal, surreal space.