Death by corporation

‘Offal Endings’ explores a dark, privatized medical future with humor and insight

By ANNEMARIE SCHUETZ
Posted 1/18/23

NEW YORK, NY — Beth Kelley, the Milford Theater’s acclaimed director, saw “Offal Endings” in its early stages. “I’d worked with John [Klemeyer] on and off for 20 …

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Death by corporation

‘Offal Endings’ explores a dark, privatized medical future with humor and insight

Posted

NEW YORK, NY — Beth Kelley, the Milford Theater’s acclaimed director, saw “Offal Endings” in its early stages. “I’d worked with John [Klemeyer] on and off for 20 years,” she said. The play, she thought, “was very strange.”

Klemeyer revised it and she read it, noting that “he brought back amazing and startling things about this topic.”

And then reality began to bite. The business of health care—and what happened to its patients—turned up more and more in the headlines. Patients and families had to make health care decisions—with financial consequences—while under stress.

Or consider a Canadian law that would permit medically assisted suicide for people with psychiatric diagnoses, beginning in March of 2023. (The Canadian government has temporarily delayed eligibility for those whose sole diagnosis is a psychiatric problem.)

Could the patients—or their relatives, or a health care company—push for a permanent and cost-effective answer?

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, John is doing it. He’s ahead of the curve,’” Kelley said.

“Offal Endings,” written by the Milford-based Klemeyer and directed by Kelley, is now on stage at the Studio Theatre on 42nd Street’s Theatre Row.

The play chronicles capitalism at its most personal: the buying and selling of organs and lives.

Of course, as Klemeyer points out, selling organs happens around the world. “If there’s enough money involved, almost anything could take place.”

In this case, depressed main characters Joshua and Mary (Jon McCormick and Ali Hoffmann) have sold their body parts—and discover that thanks to a clause in the complicated contracts they signed, their lives are forfeit too.

Is fighting commercialized health care and privatized death a reason to keep going?

The question feels almost immediate and even more depressing. But both Klemeyer and Kelley emphasize that “Offal Endings” is funny.

“It’s a painful subject, but if you make it funny, you make it palatable,” Klemeyer said. “It goes from very funny to very poignant.”

And even more, it’s thought-provoking.

The health care system in the play—and maybe in real life too—“takes advantage of malaise,” said Klemeyer. “Is [the play] fanciful? Yes. But also no.”

The “desperation” that manifested for so many during COVID, he said, “made itself felt in the play.” People feel secluded and lonely. What could happen, the playwright asked, if assisted suicide was made easier?

Such a topic—both funny and troubling—couldn’t work without the cast, Kelley and Klemeyer said.

The five actors—Hoffmann and McCormick, plus Georgia Buchanan (the Manager), Lydia Kelly (Cheryl) and Celia Schaefer (the Counselor/Angelica) are “very good. Everybody brings something to the table,” Klemeyer said.

And the audience response on opening night “was tremendous,” both said.

Do Kelley and Klemeyer see a slippery slope forming, taking us all to this dystopian world?

It’s an extension of the present day, said Kelley. Government can start with good intentions, but then the profiteering begins.

Once he was in a restaurant when another diner had a heart attack, Klemeyer said. Multiple ambulances showed up, and a battle over the patient ensued. “They wanted to get paid… the only people who cared about the patient were doctors” who were also dining there. As if “the competing economic interests couldn’t care less” about the person on the floor.

“It is wholly about us, and how we handle the monetization of health care,” he said.

The audience gets the jokes, but also sees the serious side playing out in their own lives, he said. Almost everyone can relate—aging parents, sick spouses, kids in need of care that parents can’t afford.

“Offal Endings,” as Klemeyer put it in a press release, “shines a serious light on changes to our healthcare system, government regulation of our own bodies, and on corporate success at any cost.”

“Offal Endings” runs through Sunday, January 29 at the Studio Theatre. Times are Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

The theatre is located at 410 West 42nd St.

Tickets cost $30, and can be purchased online at bfany.org/theatre-row/shows/offal-endings/.

Learn more about the show at www.offalendings.com/.

hospital, medically assisted suicide, organs, health care system, assisted suicide

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