Friday, October 21, 2005

The Toaster

Dean and I went to the premier of Rebecca Brown's new play The Toaster last night at New City Theater/On the Boards. It's a dark and funny play about the death of an elderly woman, and her two surviving children sitting on a park bench, bickering over the contents of a "magic suitcase" she has left behind. Very simply staged with the barest of props. Very Beckett/Waiting-for-Godot-esque. It's the dialogue, and the silences, that make the play. In one stunning scene, at the end of the first act, the ill elderly mother undresses, we see her almost nude body (the actress is probably near 70-80 years old, and is terrific in the part) and we watch in silence as her son slowly and tenderly bathes her with a washcloth.

3 comments:

Emily Lloyd said...

Mmmm...Rebecca Brown is really something, isn't she? Damn, I wish the community theatre in Milford, DE would take this play on. But no. It's Steel Magnolias every year.

Radish King said...

Peter, I want to see this. I think I'll take Page. I loved it when Rebecca was there when I read for Cranky. She was so bright, like a disco ball in the front row. I dug her. I didn't like The Gifts of the Body though. I couldn't finish it. Maybe it was too sad. Maybe I was too sad.

Esther Altshul Helfgott said...

I thought Gifts of the Body was brilliant. Hope to see her play soon.