New play gives 'Three Views' of couple struggling with complexities of old age, mortality

Henry Murray’s play, “Three Views of the Same Object,” will be performed again this weekend at the Bloomington Playwrights Project as part of IU’s Arts Week Everywhere.

The first weekend of the production sold out, but tickets are still available for the performances at 8 p.m. today and Friday.

Tickets are $15 for students and seniors and $18 for general admission.

The play tells the story of an elderly couple with a suicide pact — they agree to end it all before they lose control of their lives.

Multiple actors — Gerard Pauwels, Francesca Sobrer, Kate Braun, Ken Farrell, Darrell Gamache Stone, Kate Braun, Gail Bray and Catharine DuBois ­­— portray the same husband and wife, giving the audience three simultaneous views of different ways the pact can end.

As the winner of BPP’s Woodward/Newman Drama Award, a competition that honors the best unpublished full-length drama of the year, Murray received a prize of $3,000 and a full production of the play.

Producing Artistic Director Chad Rabinovitz said he chose the play because it exemplifies the current value of theater and its future potential.

“Its unique theatricality combined with masterful language brings two characters together and apart in an engaging way that I’ve not seen in the countless plays that have come across my desk in the past few years,” Rabinovitz said.

“Henry Murray brings an original look to an unquestionably powerful subject that is certain to move audiences of all kinds.”

— Michelle Sokol