A Terminal Event
Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Victory Theatre Center
Through July 10
Playwright Richard Willett has interesting things to say about the current state of the medical industry, though the difficulty inherent in writing a “message play,” such as this one – a world premiere production at the Victory Theatre Center — is that of balance. Can an author’s polemic sustain as theater? Perhaps it can, when the characters are either convincingly real or otherwise engaging. I wish that were the case here (though the actors do yeomen’s work); but =unfortunately the character writing doesn’t entirely succeed, so it’s also hard to engage with the opinions of the playwright, as expressed in this work. Katie (Laura Coover), who aspires to be an actress, has a day job working as a receptionist in Dr. Crossley’s (John Idakitis) oncology practice. She juggles going out for commercial auditions with helping cancer patients such as the sweet but overwhelmed Roberta (Randi Lynne Weidman). One day she meets the supremely self-confident patient Desmond (Marshall McCabe), who seems there more to cause arguments than to be treated, and so begins an unusual relationship that takes them to places neither might have expected.
Coover does a nice job trying to bring an emotional center to the play and is quite amusing in her drug voiceover audition scenes, but is also saddled with lines, such as “I can bathe in a man’s words.” McCabe does what he can with the role of Desmond, but as written he seems much more like a tool to express the author’s opinions about western medicine than as a dimensional person. Also, the character as written is so unpleasant and full of himself that the romantic relationship that begins between him and Katie seems thoroughly inorganic, although more is done to mitigate this in the second act. Weidman creates great sympathy as the hapless Roberta, and Idakitis excels as the well-meaning but morally flexible Crossley.
Director Maria Gobetti gets good work from her cast but can’t quite overcome the issues with the play itself. Willett’s dialogue is exposition-heavy and feels more written than real. It also comes off as something written a while ago, with one character complaining about problems with computer mice, or somebody under 60 in the play saying, “talk about a flim-flam.” The least effective parts of the play are the long monologues in which Desmond explains the ins and outs of medical billing or the homemade cure for toenail fungus, which may have merit as information but stifle the forward motion of the story. At two and a half hours, the play outstays its welcome, regardless of its worthy subject matter. There may well be a solid play with the premise of combining romance and a cancer clinic, but A Terminal Event hasn’t yet found a balance between the author’s conviction and the credence of how its characters interact.
Victory Theatre Center, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank; Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 4 p.m.; through July 10. https://thevictorytheatrecenter.org. Running time: approximately two hours and thirty minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.
