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Love-Lies-Bleeding
By Don DeLillo
Directed by Amy Morton
At the Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre
1650 N. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL
Call 312-654-1650, tickets $20 - $60
Thursdays thru Saturdays at 7:30 PM
Saturdays and Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission
Through May 28, 2006
Love-Lies-Bleeding is an intelligent world premiere
Steppenwolf Theatre dedicates its 30th Season to new works and novelist Don DeLillo’s play presents more like a spoken novel than a play as it move back and forth in time and focuses on the last years of a free-spirited artist now disabled by a second stroke. What makes this play work for me is the intelligent writing by Don DeLillo that deals with debate among family members about willfully ending the life of a family member rendered in “a persistent vegetative state.”
Despite the lack of enduring dramatic conflict, Love-Lies-Bleeding contains a stimulating take on the dilemma of euthanasia and what constitutes a “good death.” The question of how do you let a loved one die with dignity? The ethics of deciding to assist in the death of a family member is explored by the estranged son, an ex-wife and the current wife.
John Heard is the dying artist whose love for painting and the natural desert environment whose free spirit is eminent in dealing with his ex-wife Toinette (Martha Lavey in a strong commanding performance). The debates and explanations between Lavey’s Toinette and Sean, the son played with coldness by Louis Cancelmi were effective and telling.
The topic is valid and timely and director Amy Morton delivers a most dispassionate treatment devoid of sentimentality. This is an intelligent work that rivets on the concept of what consists life and when death is welcome. I like this play as a compelling treatment of the essence of life, its limits and its endings. Martha Lavey was chillingly effective. Larry Kucharik as the comatose dying artist was a picture of acting discipline. The question of when life begins and ends will stimulate debate on the ride home. DeLillo offers much to think about here.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed May 6, 2006
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