A Reading of “The Chairs”

August 31, 2025

Worship Leader: Jane Spalding

Director: Mary Goolsby Participants: Gaye and Mark Simpson, Allan Ament

Piano: Karen Heather

Think ‘Waiting for Godot’ and a little bit of Ma and Pa Clampit. That’s ‘The Chairs’, a play by Eugene Ionesco, premiering at the August 31 service, and performed as a reader’s theater (a little reading, a little acting). The play features characters whose search for truth and meaning falls short of the mark and whose goal of world community appears more dream than reality. In other words, a little bit of us in Ionesco’s play. Fortunately, the play doesn’t spare us a little bit of comedy, too. The play takes place on an island (seem familiar?) and features an old man and an old woman whose last days are both dark and hopeful. Plus an orator, an unusual character who seems, in my opinion, to represent wisdom personified. That’s one perspective, anyway.