Struggling for the Surface - Joe

“Seven years and every year it gets harder,” Mary tells her husband, Joe, as they stare down at the grave of their daughter, Maddie, on what would have been her seventeenth birthday. When Mary takes a walk to clear her head, Joe stays behind, unaware that his stony composure is about to crumble under an unbearable weight. A stranger stops by, seemingly there to pay respects of his own. But before long, Joe comes to find that James is no random visitor. Instead, he’s the brother of the drunk driver who killed Joe’s precious daughter, along with two others in a botched armed robbery. Now that James’s brother faces the death penalty, James seeks to clear his conscience about his own role in that fateful day as well as to absolve his brother from a lifetime of judgment rooted in one unthinkable moment in time. “A person’s life isn’t made up of a single event,” James tells Joe. “There’s a whole sequence of them.” An exploration of forgiveness and redemption, this gripping and poignant character study is a perfect contest or performance piece for advanced actors.see less