Isn’t It Ironic?
By A.J. Magoon, Marketing Director
It’s like rain on your wedding day
-Alanis Morissette, Ironic
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take
And who would’ve thought, it figures
THREE VIEWINGS is one of the liveliest plays you’ll ever see set in a funeral home. And isn’t that ironic? Jeffrey Hatcher mingles the complicated relationship between living and dying into a play full of humor and heart, suffused with both ample joy and sorrow. In THREE VIEWINGS, the biggest truths lie in the contradictions, in the places where happiness and sadness intertwine.
In the back of the script, Hatcher writes:
“In general, I’m convinced that productions of THREE VIEWINGS should avoid any attempt to overplay the themes of death, loss, and despair, which can lead to a lugubrious and humorless evening. True, each of the three pieces contains passages that must be played with raw emotion and without humor, but audiences bring their own experience of death and loss to the theatre, and we don’t need to hit them over the head with what they already know.”
The past year has been an unparalleled challenge, and as we return to live theatre, in person for the first time in a year-and-a-half, we all, as Hatcher says, bring our own experiences with us: experiences of loss or grief, of concern, anxiety and hardship. We come back to Next Act changed from the people we were before – older, certainly; perhaps wiser, but doubtlessly different.
Jeffrey Hatcher invites us, with our personal experiences and challenges, to lean into the contradictions and irony. In his small, Midwestern funeral parlor, we find scenes of great life, of people living full and complex experiences even in the face of loss.
In staging THREE VIEWINGS, we hope you’ll join us for an embracing of life in all its contradictions: sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating and ever-changing—never the same for long. It’s been said that “may you live in interesting times” can be both a blessing and a curse. Isn’t it ironic?
Welcome back to live theatre. With all its challenges, contradictions and conversations, we can’t wait to have you.
Tickets for THREE VIEWINGS are now on sale at https://nextact.org/shows/three-viewings/?tickets. This production is offered live at 255 S. Water Street as well as virtually. Performances run until October 17, 2021.