Playwright Samuel Hunter seems to relish in the banal, the everyday dramas of everyday people who usually remain invisible and seem completely inconsequential. His characters are small and are forced to confront issues as big as mountains. Rest, the most current Hunter play in performance at Victory Garden is no exception and is wonderful.
Set in a bland assisted care facility that has been sold by its venture capitalist owners, its last remaining residents must find another nursing home that will take them in as the staff confronts looming unemployment. There are only three residents left; Etta (Mary Ann Thebus), her 91 year old husband, Gerald (William Norris) and pugnacious no nonsense, Tom (Ernest Perry, Jr.). Etta’s blessed with the good common sense of the totally sane and Gerald has been descending a terrifyingly steep cliff of severe dementia for the past 12 years. Once a brilliant and highly regarded university music professor, Gerald’s mind, his pride and his glory, is a fragile and all but empty of any memories. Etta’s concerned how this move will affect him. Their dilemma is as fascinating as it is tragic. Etta functions more as a full time caregiver to someone who barely recognizes her than she does as a wife. Thebus does a superb job of portraying the love and humanity of meeting such a daunting challenge. It’s the belief in her integrity that gives the play its weight and credibility. To her credit, Thebus is unerring in convincing us of the purity of Etta’s ethics.
Nursing homes and assisted care facilities employ a motley mix of people who choose to care for the elderly for as many reasons as there are grains of sand on a beach. They are human beings dealing with their own demons and demands. Ginny (McKenzie Chinn) is a young supervisor who recently survived pelvic cancer. Her co-worker and friend, Faye (Amanda Drinkall), has agreed to and is carrying a child for Ginny’s as a surrogate. The facility’s manager, Jeremy (Steve Key) is recently divorced and is about as commanding and threatening a boss as a poodle on Zanex. Ken (Matt Farabee) is a kid who’s as tentative as a kitten. He’s brand new at the facility and is just taking on a cooking gig for a few days as the building closes down. Very young, fearful of death and the dark, religious in a gentle way, he seems more suited to an episode of South Park than in the middle of so much bare boned reality. Farabee plays his character straight and lets him slowly show Ken grows during the play. And grow they must all do when they learn Etta, who decides that her husband has suffered enough and should not go through the trauma of weathering an agonizing move to another facility, has killed Gerald.
Judgment erupts of course as well as fear considering the magnitude of what’s happened. Tom, content with laying in the background until the spaghetti hits the fan, rises to impose reason and restore compassion to the mix. Beautifully played by Ernest Perry Jr., the wisdom we all hope for in advanced years sits comfortably on his Tom.
We’re left with the notion that there is strength and possibility and indeed heroism in even the least of us. For that alone, Hunter’s Rest is a gift.