DEATH BECOMES HER.(Colder Than Here)(Fran's Bed)(Theater Review)

Read side by side, Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" and Elaine Scarry's "The Body in Pain" offer remarkably clear-eyed views into the nature of change and the way pain shapes the mind and soul of the sufferer. Each of these works suggests that living is not, or should not be, divorced from a certain awareness of the great wave of mortality that will eventually sweep us all out into the black sea of non-being. If you accept the unknowable--death--the peace that results can free you to know something of the suffering of others. In certain circles, this state is called enlightenment. In the contemporary American theatre, however, we prefer our entertainment to be free of the spiritual, easily commodified, and full of dialogue that even the great Thespis would fail to recognize as such. Thus we lose out on some of the most dramatic themes the world has to offer: death, suffering, and the transformative power of both.

Laura Wade's "Colder Than Here" (an MCC Theatre production, directed by Abigail Morris, at the Lucille Lortel) is dispiriting if you expect it to be anything more than what it is: a made-for-TV movie passing as theatre. One senses that Wade--a young English playwright, who tells the story of Myra (Judith Light), a homemaker whose efficiency and sense of purpose are diminished but not derailed by terminal cancer--has ambitions that go beyond mere entertainment. She seems to have set out to draw a credible portrait of a woman whose spiritual growth, as evidenced through her humor, allows her to attain a form of enlightenment. However, by sticking to structural and intellectual conventions--running through the predictable cycle of rage, acceptance, blah, blah, blah, all in one ninety-minute act--Wade sells out her characters for cheap laughs and cloying sentimentality. Where she could have been a brave playwright, she has settled for being a popular one.

This is more than a pity, given how much Judith Light brings to the role. Best known for playing the mother on the sitcom "Who's the Boss?," Light clearly wants to be an actress of range and skill, and this endears her to the audience. We are on her side in a flash, and more than a little annoyed at having to make our way through the muck of Myra's unsurprising backstory to get to her few solo moments onstage. The mother of two girls, Harriet and Jenna (Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe), Myra is also married to the least interesting husband to hit the boards in recent years, Alec (played, for what it's worth, by the always wonderful Brian Murray). Alec, understandably, has shut down in the face of Myra's death: without his life partner, what will become of him? As Myra prepares for the end by making a to-do list--it's a PowerPoint presentation--he becomes more and more taciturn: he can feel his own life force leaving him. His daughters, on the other hand, eventually embrace the idea that their mother can soften the blow of her death by making them a part of it. They paint stars and clouds on her coffin; in the play's most effective scene, Jenna even accompanies Myra on a walk to the site where she'd like to be buried. The dialogue here carries strong echoes of Harold Pinter and Edward Albee, playwrights who, each in his own unsentimental way, have dealt with the subject of death. As Jenna and Myra arrive at the burial ground, in the West Midlands, we could just as easily be in Pinter's gray zone or in the upper-class world of Albee, where death is a silent bridge partner.

Myra: Here. , Jenna: Here?, Myra: Yes, I think so. Don't you think so?, Jenna: I'm not--I don't know., Myra: I think here is good. Flattest bit. Under a tree--I like that, nice and shady. Let's say here.

Aside from Light's performance, Paulson is the only meaningful thing "Colder Than Here" has to offer. With her moving and nuanced presence, she makes the script seem more credible than it is. It's always worth seeing Paulson perform. She never ignores her characters' deeper motives. She captures the darkness at the heart of any being. ...