Exploring life and death in 'Love-Lies-Bleeding'

Jackson Reeves Staff Writer

A family debates the meaning of life and death in Unbound’s new production, “Love-Lies-Bleeding” by Don DeLillo, opening Nov. 29 in Sanders Classroom.

The play follows a family coping with the absence of its patriarch, a meandering artist named Alex Macklin, who is in a coma following two strokes. Macklin, played by Nathan Harper ’10, remains on stage throughout the play.

Three flashbacks and two flashforwards propel the narrative, as Macklin’s despondent son, Sean (played by Evan Kaplan ’10), his optimistic wife, Lia (Mia Sapienza ’11) and his needy ex-wife Toinette (Amanda Giglio ’11) consider euthanizing Macklin.

The play’s name is derived from a spiky, red flower native to India: Amaranthus caudatus, known colloquially as love-lies-bleeding.

“The flower looks the most like what they’re doing,” said director Lizy Yagoda ’10. “They love this man, but it’s not a soft, perfect love. It’s spiky—it’s something you have to contend with.”

Yagoda selected “Love-Lies-Bleeding” for its playwright caliber. “The reason I chose the play is not because of the subject matter, but because I’m a huge fan of the person who wrote the play, DeLillo,” she said.

DeLillo has written such plays as “The Day Room,” “Valparaiso” and, most recently, “The World for Snow.” His National Book Award-winning novel White Noise explored society’s consumerism, intellectualism and disintegration.

“The thing about [DeLillo] is that he’s a very postmodern writer, so it’s about euthanasia, but that’s just something that happens in the play,” said Yagoda.

Clocking in at 90 minutes, the show is not about plot; it is about thought. “Everyone at the beginning of the show knows exactly how it’s going to end,” said Yagoda. “There’s no climax; there’s no wind-down at the end. It just sort of flatlines.”

“Love-Lies-Bleeding” unfolds through a sequence of short scenes without transitions, an effect that bombards the viewer with the overarching ideas. It is known in the theater world as a “think piece,” a favorite among intellectuals or those who just like to use their frontal lobes—its sole purpose is to raise questions.

“I think the main question of the play is not so much ‘Is euthanasia right or wrong?’ but, when does life end? Is life breathing and being able to digest? Or is life talking and thinking and creating?” Yagoda surmised.

A sense of bleakness permeates the play due to its minimal plot and its presentation. In a flashback scene, Macklin talks about the art of creating a chamber in a mountain in the American Southwest. Macklin’s art is an emptiness: it is the hollow of the cave and his ability to make the hollow’s emptiness apparent to viewers. Yagoda set the play in an empty Sanders Classroom in order to have audience members experience emptiness similar to Macklin’s land art.

“I’m having an intellectual ball directing it because I’m just sitting there thinking about these issues of these characters,” Yagoda said.