Anton Goes to Heaven (?)
Written by Stefan Diethelm
Directed by Andy Reiff
Presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Director, at Theater for the New City
155 1st Ave., Manhattan, NYC
September 19-October 6, 2024
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| Chris Cornwell. Photo by Ai Toyoshima |
The first act of the title character in Swiss playwright Stefan Diethelm's newest work,
Anton Goes to Heaven (?), is to crush an empty beer can on his head and toss it to the floor, where it joins a small pile of similar refuse. Anton's (
Chris Cornwell) surroundings reflect the stagnant condition in which he currently finds himself. He has no job, no woman, as he puts it (Anton is a big believer in [hetero]normative masculinity), and nothing to occupy his days–even the television on his floor lets him down. What he does have in great supply is rage, much of it aimed at what he sees as a degenerate society (the kind of society that would fire truth-teller Tucker Carlson from FOX News), and, by his own admission, pain. The result: suicide and a quick trip to what Anton will not immediately realize, much less accept, is the afterlife, a transition accompanied by Christopher Bello's excellent projection design, with the television images covering the walls cutting to a test pattern. What follows is a gripping, unsparing portrait of the rootedness of anger like Anton's not only in social stressors but also, and maybe more importantly, in family across the generations.
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| Photo by Ai Toyoshima |
While Sartre's
No Exit, from which
Anton Goes to Heaven (?) takes some inspiration, famously makes the ontological claim that hell is other people, Anton has not yet reached hell itself–nor heaven, hence the question mark of the title. Rather, he finds himself in a stark white purgatorial space overseen by Id (Amari Flynn), a determinedly chipper agent of some larger bureaucracy. Id's customer service representative exterior belies a willingness to do whatever it takes to accomplish her goals, including summoning both Anton's deceased mother, Meredith (Cynthia Levin), and a grandfather, Martin (Kevin Duffy), whom Anton never met while they were alive into the space in which Anton finds himself trapped. Anton's relationship with his mother was less than ideal–we see her in one scene lavish more affection on her bottle of Jack Daniel's than she ever does on her son, and we also see where some of his ideas about masculinity come from–but Meredith too has her own pain and struggles and her own troubled parental relationships. Even Id, pushed and pushed by a recalcitrant Anton, may be less unquestionably superior to this damaged and damaging family than one assumes. Whether Anton will be able to leave this liminal space, and with what result, the family members will be forced to deal with one another and with what has brought them to this point.
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| Amari Flynn (standing, front), Chris Cornwell (on floor), Cynthia Levin (rear). Photo by Ai Toyoshima |
The play suggests that Meredith and Martin are not where they are solely for Anton's benefit, and the way in which toxicity trickles through familial generations is a central focus. Television, another means, like family, through which behaviors and values are modeled and passed on, is a ubiquitous presence as well, from the opening scene in Anton's home to Martin's obsession with watching the Mets–which contributes to the quick derailment of an effort at a happy family celebration–and getting his remote control fixed. The play gives the audience opportunities to feel sympathy for its characters but is at the same time admirably unsentimental about them. The family's sometimes explosive conflicts find some counterbalancing in Duffy's very funny portrayal of Martin and the comedy in the increasing exasperation of Flynn's Id (which itself takes a dark, surprising, well delivered turn). Levin has some funny moments as well, embedded in a visceral performance as the antagonistic Meredith, which is matched in intensity by Cornwell, whose fall-taking, wall-pounding physicality adds to the powerful externalization of Anton's suffering.
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| Cynthia Levin and Kevin Duffy. Photo by Ai Toyoshima |
One question that
Anton Goes to Heaven (?) ultimately poses is about the power of refusal, about the possibility of rejecting (the desire for) revenge (on an individual, perhaps a toxic family member, or on what stands in here for society) and detaching from the fury that drives such impulses. Breaking the cycle of harm and loathing doesn't guarantee that one's (after)life will go in a certain direction, but opening potential paths is, like experiencing
Anton Goes to Heaven (?), valuable in itself.
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
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