Lenin's Embalmers & Please Give

People die. In both of these shows. That's one thing they have in common. People expect more than they get. In both of these shows. That's another thing they have in common. On Saturday we went to the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre to watch Lenin's Embalmers, a play written by Vern Thiessen, based on a novel of the same name, which has had a reasonable run off-Broadway in New York. And it seems to be having a decent run in Winnipeg too. Tonight we watched Please Give a movie written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. That's another thing they have in common; we watched them on consecutive nights.

Please Give, set in New York, is the story of Kate and Alex, high end used furniture sellers who, together with, Abby, their daughter, are waiting for the old woman living in the next door apartment to die, because they've bought the place and intend to expand their own space into it. Mary and Rebecca, granddaughters of the old woman, Andra, care for her and, over time develop a relationship with the Kate and Alex and Abby. By the time Andra dies, there's been a dinner party, an affair, and several facials (Mary works at Skintology). Lenin's Embalmers retells the true story of the embalming of Lenin, on the orders of Stalin. The two reluctant embalmers, Jews, gain fame and comfortable positions, but ultimately they are undone, as the paranoic Stalin can't abide anyone who might know too much.

Both shows involve waiting for the dead. They both involve waiting for purpose too. The characters in these pieces, all of them except Stalin and the dying grandmother (who are both nuts), don't really know what they want and, to take it a step further, they don't seem to know why they want something. But they do. Whatever it is they're doing with their lives, it isn't enough. They can't just "go with it". In some cases this desire for something more facilitates good decisions - Kate gives away money to street people and tries volunteering at various places in order fill the gap. In most cases though, this desire to answer the nagging doubt, leads toward self-destruction.   Whether the characters are able to avert this or not, is not the point I'm interested in. What seems to be in evidence in these shows is that pursuit of purpose and meaning on a grand sort of scale is rife with troubles. However, when one can allow the close, intimate moments to be sustaining, in themselves, there seems to be the possibility of redemption of the time spent.

Can we rise above the big questions by ignoring them? By willfully moving from one day to the next, from one moment to the next, making the best of each one, of each relationship, or each interaction? Can we do this without some sense of trajectory? And if we need trajectory, how can we look long and follow it without tripping on the things right in front of us? The answers in these pieces seems to be that, however it works, the satisfaction comes in the short, immediate, moments, not in grand prizes or in long-term plans or hopes.