Tattered and Wincing
By Beau O’Reilly
Beau O'Reilly's play about endings, without an ending, at the Prop Thtr....
“Tattered and Wincing is an absurdist comedy about endings without an ending, involving Mo and Motion who sit on a bench observing a strange town in Kansas where they find two headless armadillos, a hapless group of middle-aged storytellers, a maid with moxie, two heroic young men on skateboards, and thirty ticking clocks.”
“An uncredited note in the program warns, “If this play goes on longer than 42 minutes, I am walking off the stage.” Curious Theatre Branch’s ensemble keeps that promise, curtain call be damned, by way of an alarm clock in this dedication to company collaborator Ryan Wright, who died unexpectedly at the age of 29 in March. Playwright and performer Beau O’Reilly loosely ties together Dylan Thomas recitations, quirky movement pieces, absurdist fragments pulled out of a chest, and metatheatrics with audience plants to create a sober, impressionistic montage of artists feeling lost in the wilderness. The specifics are largely inscrutable, but as a postmortem among friends, this is one of those rare projects that has value over and above what it communicates to audiences”
