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Whisper
Into My Good Ear Group: The Whisper Company |
| Tim Markham | |
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In this polished production of William Hanley's play we spend an hour with Max and Charlie, two derelict New Yorkers who have met at a park bench to carry out a suicide pact arranged the day before. What follows is an intriguing collection of reminiscences, regrets and banalities, never mawkish or sentimental and often sharp and emotive. It transpires that Max, a Polish immigrant, has invented a life he never lived, going so far as to write fictional letters from a fictional family. This he does not to impress the other down-and-outs at the hostel, but because, absurdly, it gives him comfort. He calls random numbers just so he can have the pleasure of saying hello to someone - anyone - and occasionally have it reciprocated. Charlie's existence is not quite such a tapestry of pathos, disconnection and anomie. He has a wife, albeit one who has been institutionalised for thirty-four years, and in comparison to his companion's detachment he exudes a passion, resentment and anger which suggest a life fully lived. What the two share is a sense of all-consuming retrospection: 'We only remember, we never anticipate', Charlie laments early on. This is juxtaposed with a courting young couple in the park. Charlie, his eyes failing him, demands to know what they're up to, desperately trying to recapture some elusive notion of what it means to be alive. Max barely notices, resigned to his own meaninglessness and seemingly sure of his decision to end it all - though he is betrayed by his attention to the details of his ongoing everyday life. Eventually Charlie reneges on the deal, and the play's rambling commentary on life and suicide is brought into sharp focus. Max is dismayed that he'll be left to commit suicide alone, wailing that he wanted to do it together and that there is no point in going through with it otherwise. The utter futility of seeking connection through death where none exists in life is powerfully brought home, and there is an ever-present sense that through all the talk of the meaninglessness of life there is something the tho characters palpably share. There is much ambivalence and subtlety built into the script, and it is to the cast's credit that its delivery strikes a perfect balance of dry humour, causticity and compassion. 4
August to 23 August.
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