ARTSMONDAY: Death Becomes Unlikely Comedy

Quick. Brainstorm themes for a typical tap-dancing number—cane and all—in a musical comedy. A night on the town? Sure. A suspenseful mystery? Possibly. A new love? Absolutely. But a sponge bath number in a nursing home, sung and danced by a man doomed to die in minutes? One would think not.
 
Luckily for Harvard theatergoers, the writers of the original musical “The Life and Deaths of Mr. Plumb”—Michael C. Mitnick ’06, Robert M. Pennoyer ’05, and Kiernan P. Schmitt ’06—thought differently. Their show inarguably takes a substantial risk in concerning itself with the gritty happenings of an end-of-life care facility, including, by its end, two deaths. Yet even in such a setting the writers, cast, and crew manage to treat these events with an uncommon grace, wit, and energy, yielding an incredibly original, remarkably touching, and funny production.
 
As a stereotypically grumpy old man, Mr. Horace Plumb is remarkable for his unusually biting sense of humor. In fact, towards the beginning of the play, Duncan, the hospice’s awkward and idealistic young social director, good naturedly enters Mr. Plumb’s room and, upon seeing him, tries to lift his spirits by saying, “Come on, Mr. Plumb, don’t just sit there and scowl. What do you want to do today?” 
 
“Die!” responds Plumb without missing a beat.
 
The nursing home is further populated by a host of colorful, if mildly stereotypical, characters. There is Sarah, Mr. Plumb’s flaky and neglected daughter, determined to make peace with her father before his death; and in the room just below Plumb’s lives Maggie, the typical sweet elderly widow. Drake, the requisite horny older man, lives nearby, while Claire the pragmatic nurse busies herself about the entire hospital in a straight-talking manner that forms a perfect contrast to Duncan’s constant upbeat attitude.
 
Everything seems to be going fine (or as well as it can be) until suddenly, at the climax of the sponge bath song, Plumb drops dead on the floor. Duncan, who finds him, is more puzzled than remorseful: how will he tell Sarah, whose affection he’s just won, that her father died? What will he say to Maggie, who is hopelessly in love with Plumb? In a split second, he decides to right all Plumb’s wrongs by living his life for him for a week. Predictably, hilarity ensues.
 
Although it may deliver the expected characters and even sometimes predictable punch-lines, “Mr. Plumb” is refreshingly and unexpectedly irreverent and compassionate in its treatment of the plot, a tribute to the writers’ and actors skill. Perhaps the script’s sensitive zaniness is best exemplified with Maggie’s follow-up to one touching line about her relationship with her late husband (“With his arms around me, I would not get cold. And with his arms around me, I would not get old”) with a line about the joys of waking up tangled in each other’s thighs.
 
Maggie is portrayed wonderfully by Rebecca A. Wald ’07, whose enthusiastic acting and clear singing voice are only a couple of the cast’s many assets. W. Chace VanderWolk ’07 and Amanda M. Gann ’06 brilliantly find chemistry and play off each other as Duncan and Sarah. Plumb himself is ably portrayed by Gardner B. Smith ’07, who manages not only to shine as a mean and sarcastic live man in the first act but also as a somewhat less outspoken dead one in the second.
 
However, the show’s performance in the Loeb Ex causes several problems. The small performance area makes for a confusing set, where rooms supposedly on two separate floors are placed side-by-side with only an elevator dial to hint at their true locations, a fact that becomes significant in the relationship between Plumb and Maggie. Furthermore, the actors’ make-up, while well conceived, sometimes seems obviously artificial even from a far viewing distance. Additionally, the lack of a full combo or orchestra limits the score’s liveliness.
 
By no means is the work itself perfect. The lines are occasionally predictable, and the meter and rhyme of the songs are sometimes awkward. But just as Mr. Plumb redeems itself for its other shortcomings, these faults are more than compensated for by the show’s tendency toward self-deprecation. Indeed, after reading a love poem Maggie has received from Plumb, Drake comments on the poor quality of the writing: “Ending on a dactyl—what is he, a post-modernist?” Though obviously out of character, it is typical of the show’s unique wit. True to this form, the entire closing number is made up of pointed criticisms of the plot.
 
It is this refusal to take anything too seriously—whether the topic at hand is the play itself, the prospect of love, or the fear of death—that makes Mr. Plumb so satisfying and original. To see and appreciate “Mr. Plumb” is to see even the darkest things suffused with a constant and quirky sense of humor—and why shouldn’t they be? After all, as Drake tells Maggie while trying to convince her to have sex with him, “Tomorrow we could be dead.” Whether we die of anger, of sadness, or while tap dancing, it will happen someday. And in that light, “Mr. Plumb” offers an opportunity to die with laughter that doesn’t seem like such a foreboding prospect at all.
 
—Staff writer Marianne F. Kaletzky can be reached at kaletzky@fas.harvard.edu.