PRE-READING
Parents make many sacrifices to bring up their children. Your parents feed and clothe you, educate you and help you to stand on your feet. when parents become old, who should look after them? should children treat them with respect and take care of them? or should parents be considered a nuisance and sent to a home for the aged? the play you will read now is about a woman who ill-treats her old mother and leaves her to die...
ABOUT THE STORY
The sandbox is a short play which can be enacted in 15 minutes. it centers on the pathetic condition of old people in society. children regard old parents as a burden and subject them to insults, neglect, and humiliation. in fact, they can hardly wait for the parents to die. the parents feel deeply hurt by the behavior of children but helplessly tolerate the abuse that is heaped on them.There are only five characters in the play. Grandma, the main character in the play, is an old woman of 86 years. Her husband died when she was just thirty and she raised her daughter with great difficulty, all by herself. The daughter, referred to as a mommy, is a bossy and scheming woman. She married a rich man and later forced her mother to sell off her farm and live with them. Mommy and daddy give a blanket and a plate to the old woman and believe they have done their duty. They treat her with contempt and wish they could get rid of her soon.
As the title suggests, the action of the play takes place in a sandbox, a shallow box or hollow in the ground, filled with sand for children to play in. a young man stands nearby doing some exercises with his hands. He is the angel of death. Mommy and daddy come to the beach and look. They decide to keep grandma in the sandbox while they play near the water. Mommy also calls out of the musician, the fifth character in the play, to come on the stage.
