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Who Lives?

by Christopher Meeks

ISBN13: 9781847283757
ISBN10: 1847283756
Condition: Standard
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Publisher Comments:

In the early 1960s, an anonymous committee of ordinary citizens in Seattle debated over which kidney disease victims to choose for an experiment with something new: a kidney dialysis machine. If the experiment worked, a small number of people would live instead of surely die from kidney failure. But who among the selection pool lives? How will the committee choose? Based on that premise and creating his own committee, playwright Christopher Meeks centers the action on one person, attorney Gabriel Hornstein, who desperately needs what the committee offers. In a review of the play in Los Angeles, the LA Weekly wrote, "Christopher Meeks takes this factual scenario and transforms it into a thought-provoking drama, which relates a timely story about both ethics and morals.... Meeks' script is smartly written."

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: Grady, January 25, 2007 (view all comments by Grady)
At Rise: The Play as a Novel

Christopher Meeks made a stunning impression as a writer of short stories in his collection THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN AND THE SEA published in 2005, an author who is not only observant of the little things that propel us through living but also as a man closely in touch with all the senses. Now he has published in book form his 1997 play WHO LIVES? and once again he ranks as a talent to watch. Note: the term 'At Rise' in a manuscript for a play indicates the curtain or the lights going up to open the experience of a story, yet here it can also be used to indicate the intensity of Meeks' substantial gifts as a writer, a playwright, and a craftsman.

The story of the play, presented here in script form yet happily free of the many action indications usually found in scripts as asides that paralyze the movement of the eye through the meat of the story, is terse, tight, economical, and packs a wallop - even as a reader. No stumbling blocks, here, just propulsive story telling (think Tennessee Williams, William Inge, or even Shakespeare). Yes, the mellow secrets of the visual representation of the play's mechanics are present - double stage settings for the immediate story and for the committee input with accompanying lighting cues that allow us to understand how the characters interact between the personal and the group.

1963 is the year. Kidney Dialysis is a new machine that can prolong the lives of patients with renal failure, the beginnings of the entire field of kidney transplantation. Seattle is the place where a hospital is beginning to offer dialysis to candidates, and because of the plethora of potential candidates, a committee has been chosen to review all possible recipients - a thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether applicants live or die. Not a committee on which many would like to serve. But the main character of the story is one Gabriel Hornstein, a Jewish lawyer married to a Christian wife Margaret, whose marriage is rocky at best given the demanding personality of Gabriel. When out of the blue Gabriel is diagnosed with kidney failure he is outraged, pounding his fists at the heavens, until he hears of the Dialysis machine: he of course immediately demands he be placed on the life preserving apparatus despite the fact that his physician tells him there is a waiting list. Gabriel coerces his physician to be placed on the machine, and because of the inherent life/death decisions made by the 'committee' (a priest, a union labor leader, a college student, a businessman, and a housewife) Gabriel demands there be a broader range of opinions on this decision body. Gabriel is placed on the committee as 'patient responder' and his physician is placed on the committee as 'care giver'.

The committee reviews candidates requesting dialysis: a black violinist for the Seattle Symphony, and accountant, etc. The thunder of Meeks' drama is the dialogue that occurs in the ethical, racial, religious, arts value to society, political, the right to die and eventually in the transformation of the members of the committee as they each grow from the heinous task of deciding 'acceptable patients'. And in the end it is the acerbic Gabriel who climaxes the play with a surprising decision.

Christopher Meeks continues to impress (he has other plays under his belt), but this reader is hungry for the next novel (or even another collection of short stories) which really seems to be his premiere m?tier. Highly recommended for reading: highly recommended for performances in schools, community theaters - and there is even a screenplay obviously present in this book format...Grady Harp

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Product Details

ISBN:: 9781847283757
Author:: Meeks, Christopher
Publisher:: Lulu.com
Subject:: General
Publication Date:: December 2006
Binding:: Paperback
Language:: English
Pages:: 120
Dimensions:: 9.00x6.00x.28 in. .41 lbs.

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