Three Viewings

Essentially a setup for three adept storyteller-actors, Three Viewings
is composed of three monologues set in a funeral home somewhere around
Pittsburgh. Moving at a moment’s notice from comedy into tragedy or
sentimentality, the play sometimes resembles Jules Feiffer’s ironic
cartoons where angst-ridden Americans bare their souls in spare line
drawings.  

The first play, “Tell Tale” features
Emil, a lovelorn funeral director burning with desire for Tess, a real
estate agent so charming that she can cheerfully prowl the funeral home
in a red jacket trolling for customers. After all, Emil rationalizes,
she doesn’t press her business card on mourners—they ask her. At turns
gently humorous and sentimental, “Tell Tale” is at times too clever for
its own good, full of literary and cultural references, with offhand
allusions to Poe, Coleridge and theatrical caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. 

Molesky, who has mastered the look and
sound of the put-upon middle-aged American, warms this slight but
affecting piece. Intoning “I love you, I love you, I love you,” as he
confesses his affection for the enterprising Tess, Molesky uses every
color of his voice to turn this from a litany to an aria. His face is a
map of comic melancholy; it limns the very geography of desire. Molesky
and director Brian Henson even make humorous use of the blackouts that
delineate passage of time. 

Shannon Tompkins slithers seductively
through “The Thief of Tears” as Mac, a woman who survives by robbing
corpses of their jewelry during viewing hours. After detailing the many
methods she has used to steal from the dead, she tells about settling a
score with her now dead grandmother to get the ring she had been
promised as a child. Directed by John Nara, “The Thief of Tear” is the
most satisfying of the trio. Mac is a complicated character, and
Tompkins delicately shifts gears for the play’s chilling final
revelation.  

Garrett Heater directed the final piece,
“Thirteen Things about Ed Carpolotti.” Virginia, the wife of a
seemingly successful contractor, learns after his death that she has
unwittingly cosigned for loans for millions of dollars. Now facing a
through-the-looking-glass scenario of massive debt and shadowy threats,
Virginia faces her problems without hand-wringing. She’s a practical
woman, clearly of solid American stock, and she lays out her problems
straight on. As Virginia, Rosemary Palladino-Leone maintains a
quizzical patrician mask, even as she’s handily evoking a colorful
off-stage cast of characters as she discovers her beloved Ed was a
“wheeler-dealer.” 

The confessional atmosphere of Three Viewings
is enhanced by the economical but psychologically complete set,
reminiscent of the tasteful furnishings of the American funeral home.
You can almost smell the floral arrangements and the regret. 

This production runs through May 10. See Times Table for information.

—Len Fonte