Theater review: 'Last Rights'

“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be … It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.”

―John Cleese, "Monty Python's Flying Circus"

Like Monty Python’s dead parrot, sooner or later, we will all join the choir invisible. Which is to say, uh, die. Death according to Ingmar Bergman, is a great chess player. Most of us aren’t, which is why we’d like to delay the endgame as long as possible. And talk about it as little as possible. But the folks at Florida Studio Theatre are.

Following in Studs Terkel’s footsteps, director and playwright Jason Cannon distilled this memento mori play from about 100 interviews of the living and the soon-to-be-dead. The result is a loosely staged series of documentary vignettes — and a direct sequel to “Old Enough to Know Better.” It’s part Florida Studio Theatre’s ongoing “For the Ages” project. More installments will doubtlessly follow.

Six actors bring this material to life: Ann Gundersheimer, Michael Kinsey, Mark Konrad, Ana Maria Larson, Bob Mowry, and Sharon Ohrenstein. They read from the script, but they’re so relaxed that you overlook it. They talk to the audience directly, talk to each other, and keep a loose conversational feel. These six actors morph into grieving lovers, philosophical caregivers and those awaiting their final curtain. The actors shuffle through a host of roles, but usually play the same recurring characters.

Kinsey delivers a powerful performance as a gay man who lost his partner — and gained a fight with the partner’s family. Gundersheimer, Larson, and Ohrenstein portray three widows dealing with the Rubik’s cube of loss, grief and getting on with it. Mowry plays a hospice worker with a scientific mind. To him, death is just a fact of life, and you deal with it. Konrad’s character tries to pack a lifetime’s experience in his final year.

While there are plenty of handkerchief moments, Cannon reaps a surprising amount of humor from this grim topic. Gallows humor, derived from the irreverent characters, and cheeky historical figures. Famous last words include Edmund Kean’s “Dying is easy; comedy is hard,” Oscar Wilde’s “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do,” and Steve Jobs’ “Oh wow.” Cannon gives equal respect to those who believe in the afterlife and those who don’t. The right to pull your own plug seems to be one of the last rights he has in mind. As a bonus, you find out exactly what happens when a body gets cremated.

It’s compelling theater, but it’s still a work in progress. Cannon’s five-act structure boils down to five boxes for quotes on various topics. The material itself is powerful, but nothing really pulls you from one act to the next. The vignettes grew out of interviews and it shows. Faulkner advised writers to kill their darlings. I think Cannon wound up with too many darling quotes he wanted to save. Strategic cuts, a dramatic arc and a stronger ending would make this work better.

Hopefully they don’t put that on my tombstone.

Ultimately, it’s hard to find an ending for a play that’s all about endings. One fine day, we’ll all share the fate of Monty Python’s parrot. That’s something we hate to think about. After seeing this play, you will.

IF YOU GO

“Last Rights” ran Sept. 7-18, at Florida Studio Theatre’s Bowen’s Lab, 1247 First St., Sarasota. Call 366-9000 or visit floridastudiotheatre.org for more information.