In the course of one Sunday afternoon we encounter drunkenness, homosexuality, dishonesty, adultery, abortion, and more besides, until the stage [for Close of Play] is knee-deep in skeletons…. The point, I think, is that [the members of the family] have all destroyed each other. In an embarrassing moment they chant, Eliot-like, 'The door is open, we'll send them towards it', i.e. the door of death yawns from the moment of birth.

Simon Gray tries to solve the problem of the family play by the device of sitting [the father] down in an armchair and having him speak not a word till the end. It is not quite clear whether he dies at the end, is dead throughout, or whether the whole play is intended to take place at his moment of dying. Whichever it is his silent presence serves as an excuse for the family to expose...