The Actor and the Minister
In a time when corporate culture has marginalized our artists and those of compassion and vision, two such people merged for a moment at a Boston church. (Shown here, Michael Milligan in his one-man play.)In a time when corporate culture has marginalized our artists and those of compassion and vision, two such people merged for a moment at a Boston church. (Above, Michael Milligan in his one-man play.) 1 2“So, they gotta find the right cocktail — combination, pump a dozen liters of antibiotic through her. Goes on for months. They’re the ones who got her sick, and now they’re billing us tens of thousands’a dollars for their fuckup. That’s exactly when they let us know the insurance doesn’t want to pay. I call. And they tell me her policy’s been revoked. So I ask if it’s one of those pre-existing condition things. They say no. They got lotsa ways to cut people off. Apparently they sent us a, a fucking form, man, requesting some information about “Jane’s recent employment history.” And because we didn’t respond to it in a “timely fashion” they decided to cancel her policy. We were off the radar those couple months in the trailer park. Mail’s not too reliable, what with the rugrats and meth heads, not to mention the post office got gutted with service cuts. But the Insurance, they don’t give a shit about any that. Truth is, they’re lookin’ for any reason to cut bait, ya know? Somethin’ like breast cancer, that triggers an alarm over there, they run her through their equation, see if there’s any way they can cut her loose before she costs ’em any more money. And they got an analyst over there gets a bonus every time they find a loophole’ll let’ em throw somebody under a bus! And that’s how the CEO’s pullin’ in 100 million a year in stock options — all of it comes from leaving sick people out to the fuckin’ law of the jungle!Desperate to get money, he starts scamming customers at his auto shop, upending his pride in being an honest, hardworking American. “But you get desperate, you gotta bend your own rules,” Joe says. “Pretty soon, it’s like ‘Oh, your engine’s broke? Oh, by the way, we really oughta replace those brake pads, and the filter and the fan belt, and the blah, blah, blah’ and you’re just running it up, playing on their fear. ‘Wouldn’t want your daughter to be the one brakes go out on, now would ya?’ Yeah, that always gets you an extra hundred bucks — if you want it. But no, it’s amazing how easy it is to lie — when someone you love is on the line.” “There’s all this stuff out there and none of it’s either your fault,” he says a little later, “but you can’t help it, you start makin’ it ’bout the other person. Yeah, it’s her fault I’m fuckin’ greased up seven days a week pullin’ 12 hours a day instead of going to the lake with my buddies. It’s her fault we’re not having sex, we ain’t never gonna have any kids. So, yeah man, you feel bad for thinking any of that. And then it’s just back and forth between them, the guilt and the resentment, and you can’t talk about it, not with her. That’s all she needs to hear — you gonna make her feel bad for being sick?” Milligan, who appeared on Broadway in “August: Osage County,” “La Bête” and “Jerusalem” and who has played many of the country’s major regional theaters, as well as performing in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company, does not need to spend nights on couches after performing in union halls, community centers and church basements, but the commercialization rampant in health care has also occurred in the arts, as in almost every other area of American life. To say something meaningful, to present theater that holds up our experiences to scrutiny and examination, often requires stepping outside the mainstream, especially given the reliance on corporations to fund the arts. Your support is crucial…
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