Suitcase (Birth) Summary

K?b? Abe's The Man Who Turned into a Stick is a collection of three apparently unrelated plays. All three, nonetheless, heavily rely on the audience's imagination and on similar themes, particularly the theme of self-discovery - or, more accurately, the lack thereof. In the first play, two women attempt to discover the contents of a mysterious suitcase. This rather simple plot is complicated, however, by the fact that the suitcase is in fact a character played by a man. The second play, The Cliff of Time (process), stages the inner workings of a boxer's coming to terms with the end of his career. Finally, the title play, The Man Who Turned into a Stick (death), stages the investigation into a suicide case by two messengers from Hell.

Abe acknowledged that these three plays were not written to form a single...