PERISHED
If you were ever beaten as a child by a person who was supposed to love you, Theater Wyrzuc’s Perished will recall a ton of pain. Laceratingly honest and close to the bone, Brian G. Kirst’s 90-minute play-poem graphically depicts child abuse from a child’s point of view; it also describes the terrible stratagems victims employ–guilt, denial, self-hatred, heavy drinking, suicide–to free themselves of the loved one’s hate. Just when the stories in Perished seem to hit rock bottom, it holds out some hard-earned hope.
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The three victims resort to what they imagine are protections–heavy muscles, drugs, sex–and one has an abortion as retroactive revenge. All are attempts to find unconditional love or create unconditional fear: “Hide it by adopting the night.” Always their longing for the love denied them returns to spoil the present. The poem peaks in desperation when Klair seems ready to commit suicide, then moves toward recovery, implying that the point of no return, the point at which you can’t be hurt anymore, is just where the healing can begin. Eventually, Perished suggests, you may write a play to help exorcise the pain for others.
