![]() "Did it go under?" LaVerne said, and there was something oddly nonchalant about her tone, as if she were trying with all her might to be conversational, but she was screaming, too. Then Deke stepped back a little and the raft stabilized, with the left front corner (as they faced the shoreline) dipped down slightly more than the rest of the raft.ĭeke looked at him, his face full of a fierce concentration in the gloom. Deke came to where Randy was and for a moment the raft tilted, scaring Randy's heart into a gallop and making LaVerne scream again. For a moment it seemed to be piling up there, thickening, and he had an alarming vision of it piling up enough to run onto the surface of the raft. He saw the thing nuzzling the side of the raft, flattening to a shape like half a pizza. ![]() "What's this shit, Pancho?" Randy looked-he looked very carefully. "It's trying to get under the raft," Deke said grimly. leave us alone." Deke said, "Maybe pigs will-" "It's moving," Randy said. He had also succeeded in scaring himself. "Next month, yeah," Randy said, and shut his mouth with a snap. "Did it go under the raft? Is it under us?" Her lips made a pathetic, loose little smile. "Maybe it'll leave us alone," LaVerne said. "If it's under there I've got a good chance." "I'm going to swim for it right now," he said. We turned off Route 41, we came up eight miles of back road-" INFO: 86 or visit know where we are," Randy said. WHERE: Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Ave., Boston The gibberish helps us know that, like Helen, like her daughter Barb, like everyone touched by this disease of removal, we're not going to understand it. It explodes into a climactic scene, where Barb brilliantly comes unhinged over her mother's "departure," and actually serves as a gentle guide for the audience. The gibberish dialogue, at first tossed off haphazardly, recurs with increasing frequency. Scenes overlap, some with furious intensity, to add to the cognitive confusion. Frosted glass sliding doors (which must be fixed - props that don't work elegantly are an unnecessary distraction) allow characters to partially appear to Helen's clouded senses. Boxes holding the artifacts of Helen's life, a clever prop that underscores the narrative, remain scattered throughout. But it's something we know must be happening inside every Helen we meet.ĭirector Megan Schy Gleeson smartly stages "Absence" on a single, narrow set. Helen doesn't disappear, she transforms - something we cannot see in real life, and certainly cannot comprehend emotionally. He does what we cannot do - he releases Helen from the trap of her mind. Bright shifts the action from impossibly serious and pessimistic, to insightful and alive. He embodies her disease, gently convincing her that all her memories are a burden, reassuring her that as he strips away her experiences, he's just easing away unwanted troubles.ĭr. A figment of Helen's imagination, dressed (of course) in white with risible pastel overtones, he appears only to her - grinning and obsequious, flirty and trenchant as well. Bright (cheerfully brought to life by Bill Mootos). They aren't sure what to do with Helen they also aren't sure what to do with themselves.įloyd's foil, the character who makes it all coalesce, is the jester Dr. ![]() In fact, one of the beauties of Floyd's piece is that the characters around Helen are as confused as she is. Gradually, as she progresses in the disease, she moves from her own home, to her daughter's home, then to an institution. ![]()
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