Light Falls

Simon Stephens (born in 1971) is one of the most prolific and relevant British playwrights of our time. Fluid in terms of genre and open to different interpretations on stage, Stephens’s plays span a variety of topics and formats, from the so called dirty realism to poetic or postdramatic fragmentation, from political commitment to deeply intimate insights.
Light Falls (2019) is a harsh yet gentle portrait of a dysfunctional family scattered across the north of England but also a deep contemplation about the meaning of life that seems to shine out the most as the end gets near. The story is driven by an internal dialogue of a fifty-odd-year-old woman in her final moment as she succumbs to a stroke. This moment breaks away from time to connect with parallel moments in the lives of her two daughters, the son, and the husband. She can now witness their moments and even say what was left unsaid; close what was left open. Elliptical parallel scenes and dialogues portray psychological profiles with harsh precision and get to the core of the transgenerational trauma through dry humour and bold hope of healing, bereft of poignant and needless words.
The light that falls is the light that shines and the light that dies.