Milwaukee Playwright Tim Duax Premiers ‘Edison’s Last Breath’ at Inspiration Studios

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Inspiration Studios' ‘Edison's Last Breath’

Inspiration Studios' ‘Edison's Last Breath’

Edison’s Last Breath, a new play by Milwaukee writer Tim Duax, opens Friday, Nov. 15 at Inspiration Studios in West Allis. The six-performance run continues through November 24 with evening shows and Sunday matinees.  

The first play by Duax, a writer of fictional short stories, is in fact based on a true story. It involves two of the most famous names of American science and technology, industrialist Henry Ford and inventor Thomas Alva Edison. The two were extremely close. Some sources write of Ford’s idolization of his friend as a genius and inventor. The feeling seems to have been mutual. They even built their homes next to each other. In today’s parlance, one may call their relationship a bromance. As it happened, on Ford’s request, Edison’s last breath was captured in a test tube by his son, Charles. Meanwhile, decades later the paraffin sealed test tube now resides in the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Catch his Breath?

Duax heard the story a decade ago and explains his fascination with it. “I was interested in this peculiar historical story between Ford and Edison. The themes initially came from utility poles overtaking the landscape. The back story’s question was how did the test tube get into the Ford Museum? Who thought to collect Edison’s breath and why? But I started realizing that as much as I was writing about electricity, nature’s beauty and the supernatural, I’m writing about a friendship and real people.  Basically, the Ford and Edison stuff is a page out a history book. But here we can understand the relationship. The formation of friendship and how it plays out over the years,” Duax said.

Duax’s play addresses this dynamic. “It’s complicated but It’s not Shakespeare,” he says. “It’s basically a play within a play, a two-guys-walk-into-a-bar tale about a pair of actors in a community theater production. In the play, there’s a scene of a fictional meeting of Edison and Ford at a New York City bar where they discuss inventions and the prospect of life after death. The meeting is inadvertently recreated by the two actors in the same bar a century later where they make a stunning discovery.”

The play explores these relationships. The couples, Duax notes, have symmetry. “Like Edison and Ford, the two actors are buddies in real life, and in the play, they are playing the roles of buddies. They are all in long-term relationships but in what form I don’t know.”

Emerging Artists

Initially, Duax wrote Edison’s Last Breath as a short story. “It was really descriptive,”, he notes. “The idea to do a play came as I thought all the descriptions could be dialogue. I submitted it to Erico Ortiz at Inspiration Studios as a one act play. The feedback suggested could be a full-length play. It went through stages and rewrites. Ortiz decided to take it on and produce it.”  The project was well suited to Inspirational Studio’s mission to support emerging artists of all genres. According to Ortiz, his theater has produced four new stage works this year. “That’s what’s happening at Inspiration Studios. Edison was another opportunity to do that,” Ortiz said.

“I feel honored Edison’s Last Breath is being produced to provide an evening’s entertainment. It should be both fascinating and a lot of fun. That’s what I’m hoping for,” Duax said.

Ticket information: inspirationstudiosgallery.com.