The Last Yankee
Last night of the The Last Yankee at the The Corpus Playroom tonight. A short but perfectly formed play that focuses on our ideas of what constitutes success and failure. Set in a New York mental health facility, the play explores the relationships of two couples, the stresses and strains of long-term commitment and the nature of male and female roles in American society. Both the wives are inmates of the facility but we are left thinking that the real cause of their depression is their husbands and the expectations of society in general. The play has a bittersweet humour to it that balances the the gentle sadness you feel. It’s strangely archaic considering it was written in the early 1990s but then perhaps Miller was still look back into the C20th and not forward and hence the preoccupation with American housewives!
And my favourite part? It’s this:
Patricia: There was something else you said. About standing on line.
Leroy: On line?
Patricia: That you’ll always be the head of the line because… (Breaks off).
Leroy: I’m the only one on it… We’re really all on a one-person line, Pat. I’ve learned that in these years.