The spirit of Dick Johnson lives on after his death, and at his wake Dick is able to re-animate his corpse, grab a bottle of his beloved booze and enlighten attendees about the nature of the spirit world he's been visiting.
Since Dick was a foul-mouthed, racist, misogynistic alcoholic, the afterlife according to Dick is a grim, eternal, inescapable astral plane where the consequence of human misdeeds is an endlessly replaying loop of one's most terrible memories of life on Planet Earth-in Dick's case, often involving his pedophilic Uncle Willy, who tortured him in terrestrial life and appears in the next to embellish Dick's commentary, which resembles nothing so much as a "terrifying childhood campfire horror story-one narrated by a brooding psychopath."
The Wake, written, directed and acted by Luke Walker, is a multi-media production that brings the audience into the atmosphere of a real wake to explore the juxtapositions of life and death, good and evil, body and spirit.
The production, which runs an hour and a half with one 20-minute intermission, premieres Friday, July 1, at 7:30 p.m. and runs through Friday, July 22, at Maggie Mae's Whisky Room, 4115 Queens Blvd at 41st. Street Sunnyside, NY 11104. Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; tickets are $25. For more information and tickets, visit Wakeofdickjohnson.com.
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