Incomplete Conversations
Funerals are plays. Most organized rituals are. There is pageantry, a purpose, a prescribed order of events. I went to a lot of them when I lived with my grandparents for much of my youth. When you're old, funerals are a pretty major social activity. I appreciate the way Incomplete Conversations by writer/director Nell Voss, produced by Silent Theatre captures the backstage drama of the funeral ritual. The show centers around the funeral of a beloved young pastor, James Edward Klein played by Victor Holstein, who may or may not have been murdered. Klein's ghost is watching his own funeral, and flashing back to various events of his life, and the often tumultuous relationships with his family and colleagues. The show is immersive and site specific, taking place in the various different rooms of the Tapestry Church on Irving Park. I've seen site specific shows before, I recall a fine production of Hamlet I watched in a mansion on a north side beach once several years ag