Meet Me at Dawn

by Zinnie Harris

Two women wash up on a distant shore following a violent boating accident. Dazed by their experience, they look for a path home. But they discover that this unfamiliar land is not what it seems - and that, though they may be together, they have never been further apart.Unflinchingly honest and tenderly lyrical, Meet Me at Dawn is a modern fable exploring the triumph of everyday love, the mystery of grief, and the temptation to become lost in a fantasy future that will never be.Meet Me at Dawn by Zinnie Harris premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2017.

Genres: Plays, Theatre

96 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 17, 2017

About the author

Zinnie Harris is an award-winning British playwright, screenwriter and director currently living in Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Bringer Of Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

a play that explores grief and the fantasy of wishing something was what it isn’t. grief is not pretty, it’s violent and angry and at the root deeply sad, and the that was captured perfectly. it is a conversation between a married couple that goes on and on, and i really do love it.

this being said i found it hard to connect with the grief on a deeper level, even though it was impactful? this might be where i would find a performance of this more touching than just the written word.

overall i enjoyed how this play examined the uglier side of grief and found it to be a very beautiful piece of written work.

[Red · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbing because of the twist in the play. Another play that deals in a peculiar way with death but also in a quite realistic way, cause death is still something that people tend to hide, to euphenise and to suppress. Great story about a homosexual couple that endures something extremely tragic.

[MJ Deans · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made my ugly cry on a smelly-too-hot bus to Oban.
Beautiful, tender, heartbreaking.

[Siobhán Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short surreal play of about an hour set on a simple beach. The action concerns two women, who after washing ashore, remember little of what transpired immediately prior. Slowly, details begin to surface making clear that some sort of boating accident has stranded them. They bicker, interrupt each other and frustratedly finish each other’s sentences in their nearly desperate attempts to understand where they are, and why. Their occasionally dissociative dialogue alerts the reader that something is off about the temporal reality of the play.

Eventually, they come to understand that this moment is a moment out of time, the manifestation of the common wish for just one more day with a loved one who has recently passed.

The play offers that, given one more day with someone we love, we might bicker about trivial things like where a set of keys ended up, or the health and safety of the neighbours dog. Maybe so. I think it represents a challenge for the director and performers with regards to how one is supposed to love or the right way to grieve.

[Madison Bouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this ahead of its production at Upstream Theater in St. Louis, MO!

Need to give it another read through or two to better grasp some of the more experimental elements of the dialogue. Heart-wrenching, mind-bending. Can’t wait to see it onstage.

[lani · Rating 5 out of 5]

painful, beautiful, tender. even a couple of years ago i couldn’t have fathomed a love and care like this, a grief like this. thankful to be working w this text at this moment in time. <3

[Ashley Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

dude. let me be in this.

[julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

surrealist yet natural exploration of grief. just today performed an excerpt of this for my drama exam and i’ll say i was moved while performing it. great contemporary playwriting !

[simple_journey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting take on addressing death and grief. Vaguely reminds me of Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.