The Catastrophe Plays

THREE PLAYS: THREE FIVE-DOG NIGHTS/ JUANITA CLAXTON / 120 LIVES A MINUTE. In "Three Five-dog Nights" the body of Wyatt Nelson awaits retrieval by BP authorities on the Deepwater Horizon, an 18,000-ton oil rig 47 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Although everything seems to point to a heart attack, some crewmembers have their doubts since at the time of his death, the main drill shut down following a leak of reddish gas. A tale of greed, "Three Five-Dog Nights" explores the link between callousness and dreams of grandeur during the lead-up to the oil rig explosion President Obama classified as: "the worst spill in the whole history of the Sea." In "Juanita Claxton," a recent immigrant is working her first day as a secretary in the New Orleans branch of the Red Cross. Jesusa, the cleaning woman, mocks but also envies her young co-worker, who seems to know nothing. Then a phone call from a third woman stretches both women's nerves. The date is August 30, 2006, and Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the city. Rescue from the catastrophe is not just imperative, it's a churning metaphor for immigration and mental illness that means more than the three women can imagine. "120 Lives a Minute" begins as an airplane makes its final descent and several characters prepare to arrive home from abroad. The landing process is suddenly interrupted by a series of highly unusual scenarios: sabotage, terrorists, a minor malfunction, an unsafe approach speed that requires the pilot to circle back again. But what actually happens to the plane and the 120 lives on board in those final minutes? And is their fate somehow tied to the country where they are about to land?