Our scene takes place in a rural American homestead where, as a prelude to shooting herself, Jessie lists for her mother the humdrum minutiae of her existence — whilst preparing pill bottles, filling labelled sweet jars, detailing who to call when the dishwasher breaks down and most importantly, what procedure to follow after she hears the gun shot later that evening.There's an exhausting inevitability about Jessie's (Rebecca Night) determination to carry out her suicide threat, balanced beautifully by her mother's (Stockard Channing) increasingly desperate efforts to imbue calm whilst attempting to thwart the unpreventable.
Recollections from both, gradually fill-in the gaps for us as voyeurs of the mundane yet tragic scene. We learn of unsatisfying marriages, disconnected personalities and the joylessness of feeling perpetually useless and unremarkable. Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman's play also touches on the unjustness of having to bear epilepsy, which until 1956 meant sufferers were unable to marry in 17 states and until as recently as 1970 could be denied access to restaurants, theatres, recreational centres and other public spaces, thereby compounding feelings of otherness and isolation from society.
Under Roxana Silbert's gentle direction, both players admirably deliver the goods, but the play itself is essentially a talking box of mild revelations leading inexorably to a final event. Within minutes of the lights dimming we become resigned to the fact that there will be no deviation from that course, no twist, no surprises, just a steady march onwards toward the final sad event in a play littered with throw away references to the futility of life.
Henry VIII's six wives grab their mics and deliver a high-octane Tudor take on girl power, as they regale us with stories of surviving the Royal Court and grabbing their place in history — albeit by association — through marriage to England's most notorious misogynist monarch. It's rowdy, it's raucous and a whole lot of headlessonistic, decaptivating fun!