Uncle Bob

ROLE: Josh
DIRECTED BY: Courtney Moorehead
WRITTEN BY: Austin Pendleton
CO-STARS: George Morfogen
SITE:

SUMMARY
The uproariously articulate Uncle Bob lives alone in his small Greenwich Village apartment. Although he and his wife are totally devoted to one another, she’s left him as she just can’t put up with him anymore, yet he still speaks, at length, to her even though she’s gone. This is fine with him — he’s happy in his hermitage, until one evening, Josh, his nephew, turns up uninvited. Josh is a very unstable young man, possibly suicidal, probably dangerous and definitely unwelcome. It seems that all Josh wants to do is torture his reclusive uncle but he soon reveals the rather dubious real reason he’s run away from home: he has come in order to convince Bob to return with him to his family so they can care for him. Bob has AIDS. Although Josh insists this is the true reason for his visit, both men know there are other reasons. They begin a bitter macabre dance as the true nature of their relationship slowly reveals itself. Even though they seem to detest each other, their need for acceptance and love soon overpowers them as they explore their self hatred and their hatred of others, accept their uncomfortable kinship and wield their sexuality as weapons, and, ultimately, employ disease as a form of suicide. Do they really find what it is they’re looking for as the play reaches its violent and disturbing conclusion?

TRIVIA