Rabbit Hole takes the Pulitzer, despite not being nominated

Rabbit Hole has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Interesting tidbit from the Playbill article:

The Pulitzer jury had nominated three plays — Orpheus X by Rinde Eckert; Bulrusher by Eisa Davis; and Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegria Hudes — however, the board decided to bypass the nominations and choose a play that hadn't been nominated by the jury.

Sadly, I didn't see any of the three nominated plays. In fact, I hadn't even heard of Bulrusher, which Andrea Stevens gave a mixed review for the NY Times. I guess Brantley, who is on the nominating jury for the Pulitzers, liked the play more than Stevens did.

I loved Rabbit Hole, in spite of its imperfections. Some of the secondary plot turns were a little odd, and the dialogue was occasionally strained, but I ultimately thought it was a beautifully articulated story about loss and grief. In fact, some of the awkward points added to it's effectiveness - my own experiences with grief and how families deal with it have been frought with awkwardness and seeming inappropriateness. What is appropriate when a child has died? Not much. And a few moments from that play are haunting in their simplicity, for example, when John Gallagher's character is just sitting on Cynthia Nixon's couch, and they're talking about stuff like the prom, and then he says "I might have been speeding." His pain and guilt and confusion are so palpable and clear in that moment.

The big surprise underlying this announcement is all the good work that was overlooked by the nominating jury. What about No Child (which I still haven't seen, but have heard unanimously fantastic things about)? And not even a nomination for the show the chatterati had pegged as the winner, Grey Gardens? Interesting stuff.