Good times and bum times, I’ve seen ’em allAnd, my dear, I’m still here. . . . I’ve run the gamut, A to ZThree cheers and dammit, c’est la vieI got through all of last year, and I’m here. . . .Look who’s here, I’m still here. —Stephen Sondheim, “I’m Still Here” (from Follies)
This is a classic Playwriting 101 dramatic conflict. But the beauty of Thatcher’s play is that it transcends the problem it presents. The question the characters are trying to resolve is not nearly as interesting, or as compelling, as the deeper, thornier problems of living and life they face tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—those tedious, messy, scary, unanswerable, existential questions we grapple with every day, or spend our days avoiding. Who are we? What do we want? Why do we do what we do? Why do we get trapped in destructive patterns? How do we cope with sudden reversals in life? Why do the people we love have to die? Why do we have to die?
Thatcher wrote a play in the mid-80s about the Wisconsin poet Lorine Niedecker. And one of Niedecker’s shorter poems describes well the bittersweet feeling I had leaving this all-too-brief play:
Through 12/15: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 12/3 and 12/10, 7:30 PM, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $32, $27 seniors, $12 students and military.
