EIGHT MONTHS. How long has it been since you lost a loved one? For Alex, a lead in the play “Reaching Orpheus,” it’s been only eight months since she tragically lost her husband. For me, it’s been one week and four days since my sister’s husband, my brother-in-law Dale, died of cancer.
Thursday evening I attended the dress rehearsal of “Reaching Orpheus,” a drama scripted and directed by Dan Rathbun of Owatonna. The six-member cast debuts Rathbun’s third original play this evening at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault. When I settled into my theater seat, I brought the raw emotions of new grief.
The seasoned and talented cast brings that and much more to the stage as they share the universal experiences of grief, of loss. How we handle it. How we react to it. How we begin to live again in the face of deep loss. It’s there, all there, unfolding in dialogue inside a family brewery and in the mountains of Colorado. As director Rathbun writes in his director’s notes, “Rock climbing is an excellent metaphor for the struggle with grief.”
Like Alex, we all struggle to climb our way out of grief. Just as Sean, who plays another lead role and who has experienced the tragic death of his sister, Sara, does. Sean runs the brewery with his father and also teaches mountain climbing.
This is a play in which any of us could perform the roles, portray the emotions. Not because all of us are skilled actors and actresses—most of us aren’t—but rather because we have all gone through the challenges shared on stage.
Playwright Rathbun and his cast of six cover the stages of grief, of loss: anger, denial, guilt, regrets, a desire to handle things on our own, escape… So much. So authentic. So relatable.
Certain lines imprinted upon me. Alex, who claims, “It’s fine. I’m fine.” She’s not.
And then her intense, well-meaning friend Abby, who says, “I’m happy to help.” She wants to help, to fix things, to make everything better for Alex. She doesn’t. Not initially.
And then there’s Ian, Sean’s dad, who follows the coping path of picking himself up, dusting himself off and going on with life after his daughter’s death, all the while ignoring his feelings and his volatile relationship with his son.
Sean tucks his feelings inside, until he slowly begins to open up to Alex, whom he’s teaching to mountain climb. Their conversations include phrases we’ve all heard, thought, spoken or written in the midst of grief: “I know how you feel.” I’m so sorry for your loss.” “It’s exhausting to be the strong one.”
Even James, Alex’s deceased husband, and Sara, Sean’s dead sister (played by Paula Jameson), offer their observations and thoughts in several scenes. There’s value in hearing their perspectives, too.
This thought-provoking play offers so much. Even humor. We all need laughter in the heaviness of loss. And we all need each other in the heaviness of grief. We all need to think, too, about how we respond to grief, the often trite sympathies we offer, the words we say that perhaps hurt more than comfort.
Beyond that, the playwright reminds us, via Sean, “…to tell people how much they mean to us every day.” Sean suggests we hold funerals before a person dies. That, too, I understand as I think back to my own mother and how we celebrated her 80th birthday nine years before her January 2022 death. I remember the family and friends who packed a small town community hall to honor my beloved mom. She felt so cherished and loved. I remember, too, my last visit with my brother-in-law, 3 ½ weeks before his March 25 death. He was well enough yet to sit up, engage in conversation, share memories. It was a good visit.
And today I think of a dear friend, bed-ridden, in hospice and dying of cancer. Her family, even through their pain, has opened their home to everyone, anyone, who wants to see their loved one. Each time I see my friend, deliver a meal to her family, I stand by her bedside, tell her, “I love you.” We laugh. We cry. And we never part without kisses placed upon each other’s cheeks.
This is grief. This is loss. This is love. “Reaching Orpheus” brings that all onto the stage. Deep and real, like the mountains we all must climb, have climbed.
© Copyright 2024 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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