SOURCE: Kanfer, Stefan. “Fantastic Voyages.” New Leader 75, no. 4 (23 March 1992): 20-1.

In the following review, Kanfer presents a negative critical reading of Death and the Maiden, maintaining that the play “has no armature, no catharsis, no revelation, no real ending.”

In the program for Death and the Maiden, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman states that his tragedy occurs in a country that “is probably Chile” but may in fact be someplace else. This coyness sets exactly the wrong tone for the evening, and Director Mike Nichols amplifies it for two acts.

A totalitarian leader has been deposed, his regime replaced by liberal democrats. Gerardo Escobar (Richard Dreyfuss), an ambitious lawyer, has just been named to the President's committee investigating crimes and misdemeanors of the previous administration. Among those offenses were the imprisonment and rape of his wife Paulina (Glenn Close), one of the country's many walking wounded. En route to...