A screwball comedy about euthanasia? That’s the unlikely combination playwright Samuel D. Hunter tinkers with in A Permanent Image, now in its West Coast premiere at Rogue Machine. Does it come off? Well, yes and no is the equivocal answer.
Set in Viola, Idaho, A Permanent Image is a play about a dysfunctional family–is there any other kind on American stages these days?–comprising Carol (the marvelous Anne Gee Byrd), the eccentric mother of Bo (Ned Mochel) and Ally (Tracie Lockwood). Hovering around like an electronic ghost is the patriarch, Martin (Mark L. Taylor), who turns up in uncannily effective video projections, sometimes in more than one place at a time (kudos to projection designer Nicholas Santiago).
Martin, a hospital janitor by day, amateur astrophysicist by night (he’s deeply into black holes and quarks), has just killed himself by taking an overdose of Nembutal. “Don’t mourn me, it was the right time for me to go, to convert myself back into pure energy.” is essentially the video message he tapes for the surviving family members. Put another way, he has taken ownership of his fate and made a conscious decision to rejoin the universe from which he came.
Carol, it turns out, not only supported him in this decision but intends to off herself in the same fashion-- with the help of her son and daughter, thank you very much.
That’s the dark, serious side of A Permanent Place. The light, funny side emerges from the family’s quirky behavior. Anne, for example, took it upon herself to whitewash the entire house, furniture and tv included, after her husband’s death. Both Ally (a lesbian businesswoman) and Bo (a war photographer) are suitably appalled by what they discover when they turn up for the funeral (after many years of shunning their mother). Ally and Bo also have many unresolved issues, which they now battle over both verbally and physically (actor Mochel has a program credit as violence designer).
All this takes place at Christmas time, with Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby crooning holiday tunes in the background. There is much drinking, especially by Carol, much re-hashing of old arguments, much soul-bearing as well. “Rationality flies out the window in this house,” mama admits. But it’s wrong to expect anything but a heavy dose of irrationality in this ultra-black comedy about life and death, love and hate, in rural Idaho.
Hats off to the cast, and to director John Perrin Flynn, for doing such an admirable job with this tricky, challenging play.
