To Life by
To Life is inspired by the deaths of my brother and mother from the same cancer during the course of a year. The 90-minute drama depicts one afternoon in a hospital room in a death-defying dramedy revealing family secrets. Backs are turned and accusations hurled as the Rosens come together and fall apart, bound by heartbreak and humor.
The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters...
The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters...
To Life is inspired by the deaths of my brother and mother from the same cancer during the course of a year. The 90-minute drama depicts one afternoon in a hospital room in a death-defying dramedy revealing family secrets. Backs are turned and accusations hurled as the Rosens come together and fall apart, bound by heartbreak and humor.
The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters Claire and Leah gather with their parents. Claire, in her mid-30s, hasn’t spoken to her mother and father in years. She often clashes with her strident younger sister as their relationship careens between closeness and collapse. Mom, meek and emotionally unavailable, is subservient to her husband, an outward bully but internal nebbish. While she fixates on caring for her son who is still her boy, Dad’s proclivity for violence escalates with grief. Jeffrey is a rich character as well, portrayed through the family’s anecdotes and his supernatural speech which others can’t hear.
The scenes reveal interactions and confrontations between family members: Dad and Claire clash over childhood abuse; Mom and Dad face her cancer which she kept secret until now as she struggles to assert her own choices; Claire wrestles with Mom over her lack of maternal love; and the whole family intermittently reminisces about their beloved guinea pig, sings the Seder’s Four Questions in Klingon, smashes glass, and clings to their fragile connection amidst the chaos. Then Jeffrey communicates that he wants his life support turned off…
This quintessentially Jewish family drama:
• Celebrates the juxtaposition between secular and religious, pop culture and Jewish culture.
• Fuses Yiddishisms with sass.
• Gives every character a good kick in the tuchos.
• Offers hip Jewish humor that can reach a multi-ethnic audience.
• Allows self-deprecating characters to laugh at themselves, enticing audiences to do the same.
• Integrates evocative Jewish music.
• Pays homage to Joan Rivers who said, "If you take the worst thing in the world and make it funny, it’s a vacation from horror."
To Life depicts the heartbreaking and humorous vicissitudes of living and creates both elegy and eulogy to the death of a family.
The play opens with Jeffrey on a ventilator as his sisters Claire and Leah gather with their parents. Claire, in her mid-30s, hasn’t spoken to her mother and father in years. She often clashes with her strident younger sister as their relationship careens between closeness and collapse. Mom, meek and emotionally unavailable, is subservient to her husband, an outward bully but internal nebbish. While she fixates on caring for her son who is still her boy, Dad’s proclivity for violence escalates with grief. Jeffrey is a rich character as well, portrayed through the family’s anecdotes and his supernatural speech which others can’t hear.
The scenes reveal interactions and confrontations between family members: Dad and Claire clash over childhood abuse; Mom and Dad face her cancer which she kept secret until now as she struggles to assert her own choices; Claire wrestles with Mom over her lack of maternal love; and the whole family intermittently reminisces about their beloved guinea pig, sings the Seder’s Four Questions in Klingon, smashes glass, and clings to their fragile connection amidst the chaos. Then Jeffrey communicates that he wants his life support turned off…
This quintessentially Jewish family drama:
• Celebrates the juxtaposition between secular and religious, pop culture and Jewish culture.
• Fuses Yiddishisms with sass.
• Gives every character a good kick in the tuchos.
• Offers hip Jewish humor that can reach a multi-ethnic audience.
• Allows self-deprecating characters to laugh at themselves, enticing audiences to do the same.
• Integrates evocative Jewish music.
• Pays homage to Joan Rivers who said, "If you take the worst thing in the world and make it funny, it’s a vacation from horror."
To Life depicts the heartbreaking and humorous vicissitudes of living and creates both elegy and eulogy to the death of a family.