The play takes place in what seems to be the present or the near future, in an unnamed Western country that is undergoing political conflict similar to what occurred in many Latin American countries during the Cold War: a ruling oligarchy with fascist tendencies, threatened by a communistguerrilla movement based in the lower class, is imprisoning and executing anyone suspected of subversion, including writers and intellectuals who have no direct connection to the guerrillas. One of the latter is Howard, a respected poet who wrote political essays in his youth; his daughter Judy and her husband Jack are also at risk of becoming suspects by association. Jack, an embittered English professor, is the play's chief narrator. He is generally uninterested in politics, but is somewhat sympathetic toward the government's murderous acts, for two reasons: he secretly resents Howard as a representative of "highbrow" culture, and he fears that his middle-class world would be wiped out if the rebels succeeded. As political repression worsens, Jack withdraws from his family and from reality. Howard is killed due to an arbitrary decision by the government, Judy is arrested and subsequently executed for unclear reasons, and Jack, after recovering from his nervous breakdown, is left as the sole survivor of Howard's literary circle. There is no visible action in the play or the film; the three characters describe their memories in separate fragments of monologue, with brief scenes of dialogue between them. Though the play is generally more realistic than Shawn's previous politically charged work The Fever, it focuses on the characters' emotional lives and leaves the civil war in the background. As a result, many reviewers of the play and film have been unclear as to whether the assassinated characters were killed by the government, for sympathizing with the rebels, or by the rebels, for being privileged academics. A close reading of the play suggests that the rebels have not gained power and that what has occurred is a purge by one faction of the regime. Writing in Time Out New York about the conclusion to the film, Andrew Johnston stated: "The film's final scene, in which Jack has an epiphany that inverts the one experienced by Winston Smith at the end of 1984, is sublimely harrowing. Like all great political art, Mourner offers no easy answers; instead, it uses the bond between the audience and the characters to jerk us out of our apathy and remind us that it's always later than we think."
