Three Comic ‘Viewings’ Into Life and Loss

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Photo by Ross Zentner

Next Act Theatre - Three Viewings

Next Act Theatre opens its season with Three Viewings, a trio of darkly comic monologues by Jeffrey Hatcher. The subtle complexities of the three characters resonate onstage with impressive attention to emotive nuance and detail as three people deal with three deaths in three different ways. Hatcher provides a hauntingly deep gaze into the nature of life and loss from a trio of strikingly different perspectives. Their stories endearingly echo into each other over the course of 95 minutes without intermission.

David Cecsarini opens the show as a funeral director named Emil. He’s a shy man who is positively crippled with love for a woman he sees at a series of funerals. Reluctant to express his love for her, he sets himself a deadline with which to express his feelings. Tender complexities follow from the plan as Cecsarini summons an unflinching vulnerability as a man living quietly in the shadows of a small-town community.

Cassandra Bissell follows with a stealthily appealing turn as Mac: an L.A.-based thief of the dead who flies out to a family funeral on the other side of the continent. Hatcher’s work with her is a bewilderingly intricate, little character study that Bissell conjures for the stage with irrepressibly stylish charisma. Mac’s a captivating character with a dark past that Bissell gracefully glides through.

Carrie Hitchcock rounds-out the show in the role of Virginia, a widow who finds herself overwhelmed in the mysteries of her late husband’s life. Hitchcock is deeply charming as she confidently allows the mystery in Hatcher’s script slowly unfold, bringing the show to a satisfying end. 

Three Viewings runs through Oct. 17 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, call the box office at (414) 278-0765 or visit www.nextact.org.