The Body

by Steve Moulds

While mom is away, Joe is determined to be the best dad ever for his stepdaughter Abby. But a giant crate appears on their doorstep, and Abby and Joe work to decipher its mysterious contents – a doll with no face, and an instruction manual with no words. The deeper they delve into this package, the more it threatens their family’s tenuous emotional equilibrium. Was this doll sent to strengthen their relationship...

While mom is away, Joe is determined to be the best dad ever for his stepdaughter Abby. But a giant crate appears on their doorstep, and Abby and Joe work to decipher its mysterious contents – a doll with no face, and an instruction manual with no words. The deeper they delve into this package, the more it threatens their family’s tenuous emotional equilibrium. Was this doll sent to strengthen their relationship? Or is it a harbinger of a more disturbing truth? Part domestic drama, part surreal thriller, The Body lives in that space between reality and dreams, where the things that haunt us most come from within.

  • Inquire About Rights
  • Recommend
  • Download
  • Save to Library

The Body

Recommended by

  • Angels Theatre Company: The Body

    Selected for ATC's 2024-25 Salon Reading Series.
    In Steve Mould’s spare and intimate play The Body, theater's purpose is reduced to the simplest and most humane form; two characters and a single relationship that exposes the human response to pain, grief, and loss while providing a path to understanding and healing. It is the simplest stories that are often the most profound. Highly Recommend for production. I saw the Phoenix production - powerful and intimate.

    Selected for ATC's 2024-25 Salon Reading Series.
    In Steve Mould’s spare and intimate play The Body, theater's purpose is reduced to the simplest and most humane form; two characters and a single relationship that exposes the human response to pain, grief, and loss while providing a path to understanding and healing. It is the simplest stories that are often the most profound. Highly Recommend for production. I saw the Phoenix production - powerful and intimate.

  • Conor McShane: The Body

    This play is so far up my alley it might as well be on the adjoining street! I love any play that can sustain a particular mood, especially one that seems to exist just outside the bounds of our accepted reality, and this play does that beautifully. It's a unique and deeply unsettling descent into the madness of grief.

    This play is so far up my alley it might as well be on the adjoining street! I love any play that can sustain a particular mood, especially one that seems to exist just outside the bounds of our accepted reality, and this play does that beautifully. It's a unique and deeply unsettling descent into the madness of grief.

  • Nick Malakhow: The Body

    A tightly written, unsettling theatrical exploration of grief and loss and how those things shut you off from and infect your relationships with others. The sparely written scenes are economic with their language but contain multitudes in their silences and specific word choices. The horror is palpable, psychologically taut, and builds slowly throughout to a few well-chosen grand gestures. The use of the doll is absolutely brilliant as well, and I'd love to see it manifested onstage. Abby's revisit of Joe in the future is haunting and a poignant punctuation to Joe's arc when he retreats inside...

    A tightly written, unsettling theatrical exploration of grief and loss and how those things shut you off from and infect your relationships with others. The sparely written scenes are economic with their language but contain multitudes in their silences and specific word choices. The horror is palpable, psychologically taut, and builds slowly throughout to a few well-chosen grand gestures. The use of the doll is absolutely brilliant as well, and I'd love to see it manifested onstage. Abby's revisit of Joe in the future is haunting and a poignant punctuation to Joe's arc when he retreats inside himself.

View all 5 recommendations

Production History

Awards

  • Hope on Stage Contest
    Hope & Optimism Initiative (Cornell University / University of Notre Dame)
    Runner Up
    2016