Bar exam

Bruce Lindsay is a local criminal defense attorney, but beyond that, he’s a bit of a renaissance man: a poet, musician, outdoorsman, playwright, designated driver and man about town. His new play, Please, will be performed on July 12, 17, 18 at the Underground, 555 E. Fourth St. Doors open at 6 for happy hour, and the play begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 and are available in advance at www.renounderground.com. Regarding the theme, Lindsay suggests that while most of us live in cages, we don’t know it because we can’t see the bars.

How’s the heart?

I’m hanging in there. Every day’s a good day, every day above ground. I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m old and I’m slow, and big guy, I’m braggin’. I’m talking shit because I’m alive.

I wanted to get something in about the play, but by the time we could get a review in, the show would be over, so I figured I’d just talk to you about it. What made you write this play? You’ve written plays before, right?

I’ve written a few plays. [The inspiration] was the death of Huguette Clark. This was about a year ago in the New York Times. She died. She was one of the last of the Dutch heiresses. There’s Guggenheim, Vanderbilts, the Clarks—you know who I’m talking about? They started way back when it used to be a Dutch colony. She was one of the last. [Editor’s note: The story grew with the telling.] She was 104 years old, and she spent decades living in asylums and hospitals under assumed names, because she was so wealthy. And she passed away, and the New York Times did a front-page review of her, basically talking what life was like 100 years ago. She was born in 1903 or something. Based on that, I sat down and I wrote the play, Please, which is about a very wealthy lady who just failed chemo, and she’s facing death, and her daughter shows up, and her husband shows up, and her ex-husband shows up. That’s sort of the basis of the play. And I know it’s kind of dark, because it’s about death, but you know, it’s funny.

It’s funny, and it’s dark, and good plays are both those things.

If you can get around death being funny, then it’s funny, Brian. It’s funny if you can stop and go, ‘I get it; it’s funny.”

OK.

Death can be funny. Somebody has to get the last laugh in.

Exactly.

Why shouldn’t it be us? Why should God get all the last laughs? Why should God get all the good punch lines? We should get one or two in.

You had an interesting group participating. Pan Pantoja directed it. How did that come about?

Pan directed the earlier play I did. He directed the play The Ninth Circuit that we did a couple years ago. He’s real talented. He’s also playing the husband in this play. He stepped up from being director. We lost an actor, and he stepped up.

You’ve got music by Steve Patterson [XTeViON]?

It’s killer. He’s there every night rehearsing with them. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard his music. It’s sort of ethereal, sort of jazz, kind of spacey, kind of different.

Is there anything else we should talk about regarding the play?

It’s sort of the theater of the absurd by the end of the play. It’s just a little bit different. It’s one of those where the audience should be fully engaged—if not embarrassed. It goes from being a hospital to other layers of reality.