Reckonings

(2022) Tom, a cynical, cranky artist in his 60s lives in a cottage that he owns with his wife on the Maine coast. On the day of this play, a day thick with fog, he has just buried his old dog out back. If only his old wrongs could be so easily put away. Instead, in a series of his paintings, almost against his will (though he holds the pencil), faces from his past have begun to appear faintly, as if rising from the deep, through the paint, through the fog, into his studio. And when these “ghosts” then begin to arrive in person, walking into his home, demanding a reckoning, he can no longer ignore the often terrible hurt he has inflicted on others, including his children, his best friends, and an illicit lover from many years ago. Worse, it appears that their arrival is largely prelude to his reckoning with (and learning from) what he calls “the worst thing I ever did” and what his wife Maggie calls “the best thing you ever did”: his uncharacteristically selfless but heartbreaking decision to aid in her suicide before dementia could rob her of her determination to die while life still had meaning.

Cast: 
Road Theatre Company's Summer Playwrights' Festival (2023): Marcelo Tubert (Tom); Nancy Fassett (Maggie); Alex Smith (Danny); Sarah Tubert (Ellie); Jessica Jade Andress (Anna); Raul Vega Martinez (Tony); Lori Tubert, Director
Authors: 
Jack Bushnell