This Is Not a Cure for Cancer
By Anthony Moseley and Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman
Directed by Anthony Moseley and Jeremy Wechsler
at Flat Iron Arts Building 1579 N. Milwaukee (map)
thru March 30 | tickets: $10-$30 | more info
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This is also not cohesive, focused
Collaboraction presents
This Is Not a Cure for Cancer
Review by Clint May
Watching Collaboraction’s This is Not a Cure for Cancer, I thought about all the other cancer/Alzheimer’s/AIDS stories I’d witnessed and wondered why cancer in particular gets a lot of attention while, in my recollection, I’ve never attended a production about heart disease. (It’s the leading killer in America after all – for now). If I had to venture a guess, it’d be that besides its ubiquity, cancer shares something in common with the Titanic vs. Eastland disaster in its inherent “drama of choice.” Cancer is not a disease 
as much as it is hundreds of diseases, each with various subtypes, treatments, misinformation and conflicting ideas on all levels. Writer/Director Anthony Mosely (along with Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman and Jeremy Wechsler) explores the fallout of his father’s 2001 death on his own psyche by attempting to take us into his own flickering neurons as they fire in a dizzying array around all he’s learned about cancer in the last decade. The resulting labor of love is a jumble, and the poetic license of framing that as a necessary byproduct of cancer’s inherent conflicts doesn’t go far enough to make this the exercise in jovial empathy it might have been.
It’s never a good sign when you have to be primed at the pump and told it’s okay to laugh at a show about cancer. That is exactly what happened at my production night a week into the run, which may mean that earlier audiences didn’t quite think it was acceptable. Having been to uncountable shows where people laughed at entirely inappropriate things (see Book of Mormon), this may be an indicator that the source itself just isn’t that funny. We are then taken to Mosely’s dentist office in 2013, an unnecessary device-within-the-device where he opens up to his dentist about his father’s cancer, then his concept for a play to explore it and then the ensuing interior of his mind wherein those thoughts and memories play out. It never gets more poignant than that first memory of his father in a hospital bed—a decorated Vietnam vet and golf pro who lived life by his own rules—talking with his son and being philosophical in the face of his diagnosis.
Punctuated at regular intervals, audience members who filled out a card beforehand are called up on stage to participate in one of three game shows hosted in various guises by Antonio Brunetti (best bit: his exaggeration of Richard Dawson’s inappropriate intimacy on Family Feud). There’s multiple digressions into conspiracy theories that hold down alternative methods of treatment and the ensuing analysis paralysis that comes from all the anecdotal evidence of people who had successes and failures from either Western or Eastern methods. Some Matrix-esque thought about humanity as the real cancer to be cured by aliens is quickly squashed, while the indignity of so-called promised cures for cancer never panning out continue to nag him. What about special cases where healthy people obeyed the rules and still got cancers? Is cancer a disease at all, then, given that we all have it all the time? So many neural paths, so little time. Mosely wallows in some regret (how can you ever be sure you made the right choices?) before finally shifting tones to advocating the worthiness of life itself and the genial platitudes of needing to live every day and every moment for itself.*
All this is very noble in intent and it’s clear that Mosely’s Collaboraction compadres—all thirteen of them—are supportive of him and his efforts to work through the inevitability of death to the affirmation of life. Despite their group enthusiasm, I’m actually not sure this wouldn’t have been better as a shorter one man show (see: Mo[u]rnin’. After.). Somehow even the 90 minutes seemed to run a bit long with all that was happening on stage. Even though the show actually invites the audience onto the stage, it never quite invites us into this world. Instead, it’s partly (but no, not entirely) a vanity project that never reaches the critical mass to escape its own singularity. What could have been universal feels regrettably shallow in its explorations—too admitted in its meta-ness and too unset on its own path to lead us anywhere worth going.
Rating: ★★
*My grandmother took a pragmatic approach to her cancer, foregoing treatment and flatly stating, “Eh, gotta go of somethin’.” This lead to my realization that it’s not heart disease but life that is the leading cause of death.
This Is Not a Cure for Cancer continues through March 30th at Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays 3pm. Tickets are $10-$30, and are available by phone (phonenumber) or online through URL (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at Collaboraction.org. (Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Anna Sodziak
artists
cast
Anthony Moseley, Carolyn Hoerdemann, Lisandra Tena, John Ross Wilson, Nate Card, Antonio Brunetti, Robbie Bersano, Shawn Casey, Laura Chernicky, Matthew Karl Krause, Patty Malaney, Roy Rainey, Jordan Shomer, Grace Wagner.
behind the scenes
Anthony Moseley and Jeremy Wechsler (directors), John Wilson (set design), Michael Reed (lighting design), Livui Pasare (video), Elsa Hiltner (costume design), Angela Campos (properties), Andrew C. Donnelly (stage manager), Sarah Moeller (producer), Anna Sodziak (photos)
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