About the Play:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

Finalist for the 2001 Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award

[boxhead] is a full-length comedy by Darren O'Donnell. A geneticist wakes up one morning with a box secured to his head. Upset that it's his birthday, he clones himself to avoid loneliness. The ensuing events lead both of them through a maze of romance, bitterness, soul searching and hilarious, vaudevillian escapades. [boxhead] is an absurdist exercise in acting inside and outside of the box.

[boxhead] is an acclaimed surreal comedy about that place where science and the nature of existence clash. Dr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes Kafka-style one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknownst to himself, cloning himself, creating a metaphysical boxheaded alter ego named Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall madly in love, fall in science and fail to make a baby. The cast consists of the two boxheads, who also play two disembodied narrators. The conversation between the four voices, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games and musical numbers, they discover that all their thoughts come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don't be so hard on yourself.

Originally presented as a solo cabaret piece at Theatre Columbus's Mayhem and the Naked Muse in 1999, [boxhead] was first produced in 2000 at Factory Theatre in Toronto and was nominated for seven Dora Awards. It was remounted at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2002 and since then at professional theatres across Canada.

Cast: 2 male

What people say:

"Comically absurd, maddingly baffling in form and meaning but solid in execution, [boxhead] is experimental theatre at its finest." — The Toronto Star

"Audacious, thought-provoking and frequently hilarious ... a tightly wound complex of existential postulations, metaphysical ruminations and poop jokes." — Eye Weekly (Toronto)

"You've probably never seen anything like [boxhead] – unless you've done a lot of acid ... For the theatrically adventurous, it's one hell of a road trip." — Georgia Straight (Vancouver)

About the Playwright:

Darren O'Donnell is a Canadian urban cultural planner, novelist, essayist, playwright, filmmaker, performance director and the Artistic and Founding Director of Mammalian Diving Reflex. With a BFA in theatre and a M.Sc. in urban planning from the University of Toronto, he brings a rigorous and robust social scientific approach to his art-making and the advice he offers to others through his consulting practice.