Book of Hours

Hunting. Taxidermy. Illness. Intimacy. Magical thinking and unloaded guns. Book of Hours is a play about our varying responses to the universal condition of mortality, and how we contain and bear witness to the people we love.
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Book of Hours

Recommended by

  • Rachael Carnes:
    31 May. 2021
    A familiar VRBO-like mountain cabin belies a mysterious string of connections, in this resonant meditation on loss, and living across the ages. Fechtor deftly picks up intertwining narrative threads, twisting each one into an inevitably strong and unbroken cord. There's a common ground that Fechtor creates here, between an easy vernacular, and Medieval wonder, a knowing/unknowing that develops the way a darkened space fills with candlelight, as our eyes adjust. A dream on death, loss, grief, and living with life itself. I'm grateful to have heard a reading of the play at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Brava.

Character Information

  • Gabe
    30s
    Early 30s. First-generation Ghanaian American. Boston private school to Princeton undergrad to Princeton PhD. Married to Elise.
  • Elise
    30s
    Early 30s. Jewish on her father's side. Working class Philly to Wharton. Married to Gabe.
  • Francine
    70s
    Early 70s. Pragmatic. And magic is a fact. Unsmiling except for when she's not.
  • Lois
    70s
    70s. Warm and wily hunter who wills the way

Development History

  • Reading
    ,
    The Great Plains Theatre Commons
    ,
    2021
  • Workshop
    ,
    The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep
    ,
    2019