Good Grief: 'Vigil' Laughs in the Face of Death

Written by Morris Panych; directed by Stephen DiMenna; scenic design by Adromache Chalfant; costume design by Ilona Somogyi; lighting design by Ben Stanton; sound design by Daniel Baker; original music by The Broken Chord Collective

Starring Timothy Busfield as Kemp and Helen Stenborg as Grace

Performances: Now through March 15, Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport, CT
Box Office: 203-227-4177 or www.westportplayhouse.org

Sometimes life is just so painful that you have to laugh. That seems to be the premise of Morris Panych's wildly funny yet truly heartfelt absurdist comedy Vigil currently on stage at the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, CT. Starring Timothy Busfield as the socially dysfunctional Kemp and Helen Stenborg as his elderly aunt Grace, Vigil dares to examine the inhumanity of dying – and living – alone by giving outrageously comic voice to peculiarly dark ideas that most of us won't even allow ourselves to think, let alone say.

Vigil refers to the intense anticipation that Kemp experiences while waiting for his aunt, his only living relative, to die. Believing that her death is imminent, he packs very lightly for his trip to her bedside. However, what he expects to be a three-day stay turns into a year-long ordeal in which he becomes progressively more and more assertive in trying to hasten Grace's demise.

Throughout the first act, Grace is mute. Kemp therefore fills the void by punctuating stories of his bizarre childhood with hilarious off-the-wall suggestions for handling his aunt's post mortem. One minute he is describing how the best day of his life turned into the worst day of his life, the next minute he is saying to his aunt, "Why are you putting on makeup? Let the mortician do it." Vigil is rife with such contrasts between poignancy and macabre humor, and Busfield, especially, handles the split-second transitions with masterful aplomb. Stenborg offers palpable support, registering a range of emotions on her malleable face from fear to incredulity to sympathy, but it is Busfield who takes the audience on Vigil's rollicking journey.

Busfield's Kemp is a misfit in the extreme. He hates himself for the asexual, cross-dressing isolationist he's become, and he hates his parents and the world in general for making self-imposed emotional detachment his only option of survival. Yet, Busfield layers his pessimistic bitter pill of a man with such surprising tenderness and quirky appeal that his ghoulishly funny attempts to summon the grim reaper seem oddly compassionate and strangely sincere. As he becomes more and more comfortable in the accepting presence of Grace, his nervous, self-punishing slaps to the forehead and tightly compressed body posture are replaced with more relaxed facial expressions and a more naturally animated, almost jovial delivery. And when called upon to do physical comedy in a "euthanasia" scene that must be seen to be believed, Busfield is downright riotous.

Ilona Somogyi's costumes and Andromache Chalfant's set lend an old-time yet timeless feel to the piece. Kemp's one brown striped suit, wide patterned tie and tweed topcoat are a throwback to the '50s during which he was probably a child. The battered suitcase he carries looks like it could have been his mother's. Both suggest his stunted growth and socially bereft status. Grace's outfits are mismatched house dresses, sweaters, slacks, caps, coats, robes and slippers. The few garments she owns hang from hooks on a concrete pillar.

Grace's apartment looks like an abandoned warehouse in which she has been squatting for many years. An old metal bed sits center stage, a colorful patchwork quilt covering it. Stage right is an upholstered chair whose supporting slats gave way years ago. In an upstage corner sits a white painted upright that becomes visible when Grace removes its paint-stained drop cloth to cover a restlessly sleeping Kemp. During fast blackouts and scene changes, out-of-tune notes are seemingly plunked from its broken keys. Factory-style metal and glass globe light fixtures hang from a two-story-high ceiling, and massive functional wooden doors with frosted window panes serve as the makeshift bedroom's back wall. Behind these doors is a workshop in which Kemp at one point manufactures a ridiculous-looking Heath Robinson machine. Stage left are large, high-hung, street-side windows – many of whose broken panes have been replaced by newspaper. Beneath them sit a metal office desk piled high with boxes, a straight-backed chair, and assorted filing cabinets on which Kemp periodically climbs in order to gaze at, and mock, neighbors and passersby. Stacks of bound and yellowed newspapers occupy a downstage corner.

Vigil is a brilliant and relentlessly funny play that allows us to peer at the unspeakable isolation of two desperately lonely souls, one a man whom the world has irreparably damaged, the other a woman whom the world has woefully forgotten. Through its refracting prism of gruesomely warped humor, we are able to gain clarity on its odd characters and embrace them as they find a way to make a human connection. We laugh spontaneously at their absurdity, but when we catch our breath, we are deeply moved.

PHOTOS: Timothy Busfield as Kemp and Helen Stenborg as Grace; Helen Stenborg and Timothy Busfield; Timothy Busfield and Helen Stenborg

 

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