The Orlando International Fringe Festival show, To All Our Dead Pets was a heart tugging open therapy session at the Rainbow Bridge Support Group for 11 strangers who were grieving for the loss of a pet. The loss of a pet tends to be even more devastating than the loss of a friend or relative.
In the lobby, each audience member was given a name tag and we were asked to write the name of a pet we had lost. I wrote Timmy. Timmy was the beagle our family had as I was growing up. After my mother died, we had to take Timmy to the vet. I sat in the back seat with him. He had developed worms, and the worms literally were wiggling out of his belly and fur and dropping onto the seat as we drove to the vet. It is a vivid terrifying childhood memory of mortality that is hard to wipe away. Timmy was put down at the vet.
As the theater filled the pianist swayed to the beat of the house music. I am a fan of anyone who have to move enthusiastically when the music plays. As the accompanist she did an amazing job holding this musical together.
The folding chairs were arranged in a circle as the audience filled the theater, but once the play started, the actors set themselves up in a line. Each actor had am monologue and a solo performance.
The woman seated in the center acted as the moderator at first but others stated a mutiny, questioning why she was putting a positive feel good spin one peoples grief.
One girl only had her pet for a day but her grief was as intense and everyone else’s. One woman became so overwhelmed that she stormed out of the back door of the theater. One macho actor tried to make a jokes at the expense of others. There was an author, a matronly grandmother, and a woman who felt she was above it all until she to broke down. The lyrics didn’t grip me but the feelings expressed held me firmly to my seat.