Love, Lies, Bleeding
By Don De Lillo
Directed by Michael Futcher
31st October - 23rd November, 2024
About the play
The play concerns an artist named Alex Macklin in the last years of his life, and the effect his condition has on his son, Sean, and his second and fourth wives, Toinette and Lia, respectively. After a major second stroke, Alex is left in a persistent vegetative state and the other characters convene to reach a consensus about his fate. Sean pleads for mercy killing, arguing that his father is no longer alive except in a narrow technical sense. Toinette is sympathetic to this idea but later in the play evinces doubt and uncertainty about the metaphysical nature of their undertaking. Lia is initially opposed to the idea, arguing for a natural death without intervention, though later she agrees to Sean's plan to sedate and ultimately end Alex's life with the aid of morphine. The play also contains three scenes portraying earlier episodes in Alex's life with Lia and with Toinette.
Though written before the national debate concerning Terri Schiavo, the play predicts many of the questions central to that debate and is a powerful meditation on themes of mercy and mortality in the age of advanced medical technology. DeLillo has stated "I suppose this is a play about the modern meaning of life's end. When does it end? How does it end, how should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?"
CAST
Alex |
Tionette |
Lia |
Sean |
CREATIVES AND CREW
Director | Michael Futcher
Assistant Director | Tom Pocilujko
Reviews
Please note that reviews are of other productions until the season commences.
“The play is at its best in showing how people impose their own desires on the irrecoverably ill: Lia says of Alex “he wants to die in nature’s time” while Toinette and Sean presume that he wants to be relieved of pain. Who, DeLillo asks, are we to know what goes on in the mind of the silently suffering?”
The Guardian
“Love-Lies-Bleeding is a truly magnificent play, drawing its audience in to a scenario we hope we never find ourselves in, but still hangs over us in frighteningly close proximity. As for the writing, this play shows that when a great novelist writes a play, each line of dialogue is like its own bestseller, carefully crafted to be delivered with unwavering confidence.”
Theatre Weekly
Actors
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Creatives & Crew
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