Layer up and layer down, take the ladies back to town. Let the play reveal the things that sub-consciousness to true life brings:
Let's visit a production of “Gloaming, Oh My
Darling,” a one-act play by Megan Terry (which has nothing to do with the song or film of similar
name).
The 1965 absurdist comedy is about two old ladies
in a nursing home who steal a man from another floor and hide him in their
beds.
The unlikely man-napping helps them deal with physical
aging, memory loss, lack of freedom, the baby talk of aides, and the duty visits
of relatives.
Picture it: Two
old ladies, center stage, full of marvelous insults that rival Shakespeare: “You 2-minute egg, you runny slimy, boiled egg!”
They rue the loss of their own eggs, compete over the ownership
of the man—Whose husband is he anyway?—and sit on him when their families arrive.
What a romp! But
what if the man is real? What if he is in “the gloaming” of life? What
if the secret presence makes the ladies powerful again?
In their shared scenes, the song, “In the Gloaming”
takes them outside the frame of the action to a zone where they are still more alive than almost dead.
And there they stay, in a zone of freedom and love, in a
dreamland of dignity, moving, waltzing, flowing, living, becoming, dying. Hold. Blackout.
My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast
I was laughing out loud at them sitting on the man when their families arrived. Sounds like a fun play...even with the life/death questions. (I'm so borrowing "2-minute-egg" - thank you!!)
ReplyDelete