Masque of Death

By T.E . Kalem

A GRAVE UNDERTAKING by LLOYD GOLD

The time is Mardi Gras. The place is an undertaker's parlor that looks rather like a medieval cloister. The hero is an undertaker named Herman Starr (Pat Hingle) who jests at death as if he never felt the wound. Actually, he feels it very deeply since his 15-year-old daughter Monica (Deborah Offner) may die at any moment. She was born a blue baby with "a hole in her heart."

A Grave Undertaking, which is having its premiere at Princeton's McCarter Theater, has a few holes too, for it is the first full-length effort of a young writer. At 25, Lloyd Gold shows a genuine feel for drama and the daring to tackle a large theme--death.

The play is full of gallows humor. In one scene, straight out of the theater of the absurd, Hingle, raging over his daughter's abortive life, tries to throttle a cadaver in front of the relatives of the dead man.

A Grave Undertaking is an indictment of God. If God is good, how can he permit the death of a young innocent? If he does not exist, death can only be a convocation of worms. This line of reasoning is not new; it runs through dramatic literature from Euripides to Ionesco-- life is a dirty joke. But themes do not a playwright make. A grip on the dramatic imagination does, and Gold shows every sign of that. Born in Georgia, he has spent two summers at the Edward Albee Foundation at Montauk on Long Island, N.Y. It will not come as a surprise that Pat Hingle imbues his role with the warmest humanity As Monica, Deborah Offner impressively combines girlish fantasy with bride-of-death gravity. Michael Kahn's direction is a manual of professional devotion, and the McCarter has a small gem on its hands.

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