The excellent and rather brilliant
Benno Nelson, in addition to his fantastic blog, writes a weekly "Cliché Watch" for the blog of The New Colony. He explores various theatrical cliches, and for the past few weeks, they've been formatted as debates rather than as monologues. He very graciously asked me to write this week, on a particular hated cliche of mine--dead relatives onstage. Yes, they've been around since
Hamlet at least, but they've been inescapable since (the wildly overrated)
Proof. And I've had about enough.
You can read my piece and Benno's response
here. Please read and share your opinions on this particular cliche, and suggest topics for future installments!