Review by Damjan Rakonjac

. . . The action feels kaleidoscopic rather than cumulative, dispersed over geographical distances rather than plotted out in time. In fact, the overarching idea—the plot’s “problem”—is that Kircher is indeed running out of time. As he closes in on death, he is forced to meditate on the work’s major theme: the complicity of knowledge in structures of power (just when you thought it was safe to stop reading Foucault). Knowledge is no mere means to power for Kircher, however, but rather an object of obsessive desire in itself. It is the purity of his desire that ultimately saves him, though it is far from disinterested. Part of The Boy’s dramatic purpose seems to be to embody Kircher’s desire, a power which is wielded malevolently and is dispersed throughout many bodies on stage; even the Pope gets a hand-job. . . .