Michael Vitaly Sazonov as Dr. Bernard Rieux
photo by Ian Armstrong
I had a great time delving deep into the clinical mind and scientific heart of Albert Camus’s Dr. Bernard Rieux. He was a lot of fun to play — as much fun as one can have on stage dealing with things like the plague… the blind brutality of incurable diseases, the frustration of a crippling bureaucracy, the Absurdity of tragedies that present itself when people, surrounded by death, quarantine themselves from the rest of the world to contain the pestillence that’s killing them all. Life and Death. Faith and Fate. And “Man.” The show really started cooking as the run progressed, so I’m sorry to see it end so quickly. I want to heartily thank Robert and Elle and the whole cast and crew at Scena Theatre.
Now as I read the stories about cyclones, earthquakes, fires, and floods taking lives by the thousands, I can only hope that Camus (through his cast of complex characters and arguments) is both wrong and right. As much as I hope that there will not “always be victims, because that is the order of things,” I too hope that tragedies like these can “help men to rise above themselves” because after all, I hope there are always “those who, while unable to be saints, refuse to bow down to the plague…” Those who, in the time of true testing, strive not for lofty answers or reasons, but work for cures. “Their actions and desires are limited to ‘Man’ and his humble, yet awe-inspiring love, and they shall have their reward. It’s only right.”
And from the relative comfort of my computer, I can sit here and type this as (a hope for) truth. Yet amidst these recent tragedies, I can only think through the paradigm of Camus’s characters… Is it out of my hands to help everyone? Maybe. After all, Dr. Rieux sent his own wife away to die alone in a sanatarium because he knew he was incapable of curing her. Is it always out of our hands? Maybe not. Is tragedy always so far away and so well reported on? Never. As a former professor of mine once said, “the whole world needs the whole world.” So I pray for those dealing with these tragedies every day just as I hope others pray for me. Because, as the town of Oran finds out in the midst of the Plague, “it can’t do any harm.”
