Lawrence & Holloman

Morris Panych is at it again In a dizzying series of agonizingly introspective and hilarious examinations of characters in psychic extremis, beginning with 7 Stories and continuing with the Governor General's Award winning The Ends of the Earth and Vigil, Panych keeps his characters at the edge of the brink -- and his audiences at the edge of their seats. Lawrence and Holloman, a hapless herd and a loquacious salesman, meet by chance. From this fleetingly irritating and insignificant encounter, the viciously murderous and incredulously bizarre plot emerges into the full-blown twilight of what appear to be their insignificant and meaningless lives. And it is this very absence of significance and meaning in the lives of the characters which produces both the mindless evil and the greeting-card redemption that gives them their shape. This is a universe in which Camus meets Dali, where Goya meets Disney, where gunshots and bathtub drownings, disillusion and dismemberment become the Seventh Seal of the Grey Flannel set. Although apoplectic laughter and the blackest attacks of melancholia are common audience responses to Lawrence & Holloman, no one has yet died laughing during a performance of one of Panych's plays. On the other hand, there are no reports of anyone jumping off any tall buildings yet either.