Birth Place: Amarillo, TX, USA
Portland Stage Studio Theatre's Christmas reprise of David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries is eighty-five minutes of rollicking, wicked good fun (as Mainers like to say!). This is due not only to Sedaris' mordant comic style, but also to the chameleon brilliance of Dustin Tucker as Elf Crumpet.
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The Portland Stage production of Canadian playwright Morris Panych's black comedy, Vigil, is a provocative and challenging mounting of an often off-putting play. That the company once again has the courage to undertake a work that has had mixed success in the U.S. and clearly pushes the limits of dark, macabre humor is a testament to the Maine stage's commitment to innovation and integrity. That said, the afternoon in the theatre is not an easy one, even for an experienced reviewer like myself. But then, of course, Panych does not intend it to be. His play, which tells the story of Kemp, a young man who receives a summons to attend the bedside of his dying Aunt, only to find that she is not yet ready to make that journey. In the months that Kemp and Grace share her tiny, bleak apartment, they come to confront the terrifying and messy process of dying, the agony of loneliness, the scars of Kemp's childhood, and the ultimate meaning of caring and compassion.
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