Bri

Self-deprecating and self-pitying, Bri is the stymied protagonist of the play. He is also the comedian of this dark comedy. Both of the play's extended scenes of physical comedy are his. In Act One, he treats a tubular cushion irreverently even though it symbolizes his severely physically and cognitively disabled daughter, Joe. In Act Two, he carries Joe as though she were an object. He often jokes about how completely incapacitated Joe is, trying to charm both the audience (which all of the characters in the play acknowledge, since this is a metaplay) and his wife, Sheila. He wants them to support the action that he, as the protagonist, would like to take to change his increasingly estranged marriage, ending Joe's life. For Bri, the worth of a human life is determined by whether a person has the ability to act on his desires. Joe has neither the...