Comfort's Broken Light

By Aris Bremer

Directed by Molly Watkins
Mississippi Theatre Association Annual Festival
January 12-15, 2006

Featuring – Madeliene Golden, Natalie Kern, Lyle Tate, and Krista Vowell

After a long absence, Lara has come back to her parents’ home to celebrate her father Martin’s 60th birthday. She’s dismayed to find how forgetful he is and shocked when he defaces a new photo she has brought of her young son.

Lara’s mother, Ali, tries to smooth over the confusion and awkwardness, but admits she’s worried about who will take care of Martin when she’s hospitalized to have her hip replaced. Greta, a prickly sister-in-law still fragile from her husband’s recent death, wants Lara to face up to the new reality of her parents’ health. But it isn’t until Martin’s erratic behavior directly affects Lara that she’s willing, finally, to stop tap-dancing around the truth.

With piercing honesty, she acknowledges that her father suffers from Alzheimer’s and they must put him in a nursing home. Yet, while Martin’s outbursts hurt those who love him, his pain is the greater: discovering every day anew that his son has died.

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