Reading Community Players and Feeney’s Funeral Home Present Jeffrey Hatcher’s ‘Three Viewings,’ a play that reveals that sometimes only at death do we fully realize how we feel about the departed — and perhaps ourselves; that death can bring out the best and worst in survivors; and that no matter how familiar the deceased may be, he can still surprise us.
Directed by Lisa Uliasz, each of the three monologues in this play, while very different, involves a negotiation with a corpse.
‘Tell Tale’ deals with the simple finality and inexplicability of death. Emil (Steve Reazor) is a mild mannered undertaker whose unspoken passion for a local real estate saleswoman who comes to all his funerals propels him to plot a way to confess his true feelings before time — and bodies — run out.
The second speaker, in ‘Thief of Tears,’ is Mac (Julia Hager), a beautiful LA drifter who makes her living stealing jewelry from corpses. When her wealthy grandmother dies, leaving her nothing, Mac returns to her hometown and attempts to pry loose her inheritance, a diamond ring her grandmother promised her when she was a child. Her attempt leads her to more memories than she bargained for.
Finally, in ‘Thirteen Things About Ed Carpolotti,’ the writing is more satiric and less overtly emotional than the other two monologues. Virginia (Ruth Martelli) is the widow of a wheeler-dealer contractor, who discovers her husband has left her in debt to the bank, her family and the mob. Virginia doesn’t have the money but she does have hidden resources that resurrect the love and trust thought lost forever.
Play dates are Sept. 18, 19, 20 and 21. 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. The venue is Feeney’s Funeral Home, North 4th St just off Centre Avenue, Reading. A wine tasting and ‘meet the actors’ party will take place upstairs in the mansion after the show for an additional cost.
Tickets are available at the website www.readingcommunityplayers.com or reservations can be made by calling (610) 375-9106.
From Reading Community Players
