With the title of the play Ripcord at the Playhouse, you might wonder if there’s a parachute jump or if someone is tearing up something. Actually, it looks as if both ideas apply.
Assisted-living roommates Abby and Marilyn constantly leap into tirades and slash at each other. A duel of wits ensues which has as much to do with the vicissitudes of aging as it does with what happens in their shared living space. You may find kinship with The Golden Girls, The Odd Couple and Harold and Maude as family estrangement and the hovering of death cross paths with a wacky sky diving scene and a strange clown.
Doesn’t sound like a lot of laughs, does it? However the script is by David Lindsay-Abaire whose first plays established him as a writer of bittersweet comedies in the Christopher Durang absurdist vein. But note that Lindsay-Abaire won a Pulitzer for dark and disturbing Rabbit Hole. This 2015 script seems about to descend into perilous territory but Variety says that “the sublimely daffy muse returns.” And “There’s no shortage of funny lines,” notes the Hollywood Reporter. N.b. some lines are deemed quite adult.
Overall, families are definitely Lindsay-Abaire’s thing. Pray that these aren’t yours.
Ripcord lets loose January 19-February 11 at Hawks Mainstage Theatre, Omaha Community Playhouse, 6915 Cass St. Weds.-Sat.: 7:30 p.m.,Sun.: 2 p.m. Tickets $28-$36. http://www.omahaplayhouse.com/