Hallo I must be going
A new play for the New York fringe theatre
Hello, I Must Be Going begins with the sound of Groucho Marx singing the song of that title; the paradox of that lyric is at the heart of this drama by Albi Gorn, though not, in general, its fractured sense of humor. The play concerns Harvey, who when we first meet him is just a few days shy of his 50th birthday and also about to be a father, for the first time, of twins. But he's saddled with ambivalence because his father, Maury, has recently suffered a debilitating stroke that has left him unable to speak and paralyzed on his right side. And then very real tragedy strikes when one of the twins is stillborn. (The other, a healthy boy, is named Julius—Julie for short—in honor of Groucho, whose real name was Julius Marx.)
Gorn's play explores how happiness and sorrow co-mingle in the lives of Harvey and his wife, Emma, as they celebrate the birth of their son, mourn the loss of their little girl, and try to come to terms with Maury's fading health. The play is adventurous, in places: Maury is represented by two actors, one of whom speaks his thoughts and also portrays him as a younger man in a series of flashback scenes depicting Harvey's relationship with his Dad over the years. More interestingly, the unborn children are played by adult actors who speak their "thoughts" from inside the womb; and baby Julie also is seen to speak his own, very grown-up thoughts even as he "acts" like the tiny infant that he is.
For me, the most interesting idea raised by the play was how the death of a twin in the womb might affect the survivor: Gorn theorizes that Julie misses his sister rather severely, though he seems hopeful about Julie's ultimate ability to overcome this trauma. More here
You tube Interview with Albi Gorn
Is this another womb twin survivor, I wonder? His latest play is about forgiveness, that's a big issue for womb twin survivors........
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