In The Will to Power, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciatingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been expected, the most cheerful.”
That quote captures the harmonizing of two polar opposites in our mortal existence, signifying life’s pleasure and grief’s pain. In fact, humor is esteemed among many bereavement counselors and therapists. Recognizing the humbling limits of mortal existence, the individual realizes being human is no reason to despair but instead to rejuvenate themselves in their journey to find new joys in life.
In the Salt Lake Acting Company premiere, the quartet of actors in the play The Robertassey, a new work by Kathleen Cahill, make a successful case for both warm-hearted and dark comedy being included within “the highest task and the true metaphysical activity of this life,” as Nietzsche suggested in The Birth of Tragedy.
Directed by Penelope Caywood and Hannah Keating, The Robertassey encompasses the journey of Roberta (Anne Louise Brings), 30, who is in utter despair. Unemployed and feeling very little about anything that might give her affirmation, she travels to Dublin, carrying her father’s ashes in her suitcase. At the urging of her pregnant sister, Carol (Heidi Hackney), Roberta, whose relationship with her father was difficult to say the least, will scatter his ashes over Ireland. But, when Roberta’s luggage does not arrive and attempts to confirm when it might possibly show up are unsuccessful, the follies propel large servings of comedy in the script.
Brings gives Roberta the credibility needed for a character in the circumstances that Cahill has established. In a program note about the play’s provenance, Cahill recalled her own missing luggage disaster when she went to Ireland for a hiking trip. Oddly enough, it was a good dose of Irish charm that alleviated some of her distress. Cahill wrote, “They love language, and I love the way they treat fantasy like it was just a less ordinary part of reality.”
The characters, which the three other actors in the cast portray, guide Roberta who has been mired in the relentless comedy of her earthly existence even long before her luggage went missing at the Dublin airport. Standing out for aplomb and magnetism is Eric Sciotto, who plays Garth and Aemon, both of whom definitely enchant the audience. Hackney, who plays Roberta’s sister, also portrays two Irish characters who ease Roberta’s disillusionment in their own ways. The subtle, tender bits in Darryl Stamp’s performances as an Irish bartender and the late father complete a first-rate chamber theater ensemble. The actors are credited with amplifying a script that still could use a few more brushstrokes to give it straightforward clarity and cohesion.
At the outset, Roberta is taken aback by her sister’s request to take their father’s ashes to Ireland. Dissatisfied with the relationship she had with her father and the rut in her life, Roberta is at a crossroads where she has barely any answers for her life. Has she truly acknowledged what her grief is about? The Robertassey does not just channel Irish charm and wisdom but also a quintessential Nietzschean ideal. To create her new adult self, Roberta has the power to process her personality traits, habits, and the dynamic patterns in her relationships. She is 30 — an age that many consider the final break from childhood to fully fledged adulthood. Finally learning to laugh at tragedies, whether they are fantasy or real, Roberta reaches a ‘new beginning’ in her odyssey.
This is the sixth Cahill play that SLAC has premiered. Performances continue through March 2 at the Upstairs Theatre in the SLAC company home (168 West 500 North). For tickets and more information, see the SLAC website.