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Christopher Lysik (Body of Work, including "Thicker Than Water," "American Rusałki," and other related plays)

We hope to normalize the conversation around cancer and its survivors.

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About

Over the course of a day (whatever a “day” means), Big and Little sit together on a dock overlooking Narragansett Bay in a fantasy-Rhode Island. With the morning light comes small-talk, childhood games, and discussions of their memories and shared lives. As night approaches, though, something deeper is revealed.

The two brothers are not here by choice, but rather are stuck in an unending cycle until they each come to terms with the past: Big and Little suffered from identical cancers, but very different outcomes. Little’s death has sent Big into a tailspin of survivor’s guilt, upending his family life and challenging his beliefs in religion. Meanwhile, Little has accepted his fate, but not the finality of that reality. Back and forth they go, each attempting to leave the dock, but neither willing to abandon the other. In the end, though, acceptance is found— a painful one, but acceptance nonetheless. The final moments leave Big onstage, imagining for the first time a life somewhere beyond the horizon line.

The physical realities of cancer and cancer treatment are well-documented. Less so are the emotional realities — particularly the complexities of remission, when a patient is abruptly declared “cured.” We hope to normalize the conversation around cancer and what it means to be a survivor.

Thicker Than Water is a 70-minute play structured around Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief, which explores illness, loss, and brotherhood.

Learn More: https://www.thickerthanwaterplay.com/