Talk about your deathbed confessions.
Jeffrey Hatcher's "Three Viewings," opening next week at Live Theatre Workshop, is full of them. Really.
The scene is a funeral parlor, and it prompts some very lively chatter from three people attending different services.
There's Emil, the meek mortician, who has long loved a woman who frequents his funerals. Emil must find a way to tell her how he feels before there are no more dead bodies for her to view.
And Mac. She's young, beautiful and a thief who robs corpses of their jewels.
And finally Virginia, whose husband's death left her in deep debt, including to some unsavory mobsters.
Each of these takes a turn talking to members of the audience, filling them in on their lives.
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"They are storytelling at its finest," director Sabian Trout said of the monologues.
Hatcher (who also penned "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club," which receives its world premiere at Arizona Theatre Company next month) uses a simple format to write about not-so-simple characters, Trout said.
"Jeff's writing is complex and beautiful, and he does an amazing job of unmasking these three separate lives," she said in a phone interview last week.
"The pieces are funny and fast-paced and hopeful, and they are also dark and touching, and the characters have secrets and make life-altering revelations. It's wildly engaging."
While this is a three-character play, they never interact, so Trout has been rehearsing each of the actors - Jodi Ajanovic as Mac, Keith Wick as Emil and Lesley Abrams as Virginia - separately.
But it won't be a disjointed evening.
"It's like directing three plays, but the approach needs to be the same for all three," Trout said.
And while there are three individual stories, they are all well-told.
Each of them "engages us to the characters through emotion," Trout said.
"You become invested through their passions and hardships and joys. A great story connects us to universal truths, and maybe allows for a little window into ourselves. ... We become immersed in these characters. But we not only empathize - we laugh."
Preview, shows
"Three Viewings"
• Playwright: Jeffrey Hatcher
• Director: Sabian Trout
• When: Previews are 7:30 p.m. Thursday and next Friday; regular performances are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays, Aug. 27-Oct. 2.
• Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway.
• Cost: Previews, $12; regular performances $18.
• Reservations, information: www.livetheatreworkshop.org or 327-4242.
• Running time: 90 minutes, with no intermission.
• Cast: Lesley Abrams, Jodi Ajanovic and Keith Wick.
Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.
