Wracked with a highly contagious disease, Dinah Reisberg is forcibly removed from her old life of passionate activism in the heart of the city and brought to the distant mountains to reside in the limbo of the so-called White Hotel. Lost in this land of shadows, Dinah is caught in a love triangle between fellow inmate Jonah, soldier-poet and seductive harbinger of Death, and David, Dinah’s beau from the city, pragmatic delegate of Life, Orpheus to Dinah’s Eurydice. Jonah’s alluring romanticization of death will lead Dinah down a dark path.
A contemporary Gothic drama that confronts the myths and limits of medical authority and power, The White Hotel investigates the precipice between love and lust, life and death.Â
The White Hotel was developed with the support of the Kone Foundation, through a fellowship at the Saari Residence, Finland. It was selected for the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s 2023 International Craft Bites online reading series. The Finnish translation by acclaimed novelist Sami Hilvo has been developed with the support of the Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac, organized by Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal.Â
Keywords:Â tuberculosis, love triangle, Orpheus and Euridice, illness, death, war, limbo, Gothic drama, sanatorium, medical myths
Genre: Drama
Acts: 1
Run time: 75 minutes
Content notes:Â Jonah's death is described graphically (might also be acted out, as determined by Director)
Cast size: 6 actors
Male roles: 2
Female roles: 3
Trans/Non-Binary/Gender Non-Conforming roles: 1
Casting notes:
Dinah, mid-20s
David, older than Dinah
Jonah, older than David
Hanna, Dinah's sister, early 20s
Sima, mother of Dinah and Hanna, late 40s
Nurse/Control: Nurse is an onstage character; Control can be onstage or a disembodied voice. Played by the same actor. Could be non-binary.