Confronting 'The Large Jar' At Providence's Fringe Festival

PROVIDENCE, RI — Terminal illness is not a pretty subject. It's not something many people like to talk about. It often, as it turns out, comes with an unexpected gift from the patient's doctor: a large jar, filled with painkillers.

It's this somewhat confusing item that Kate Gill addresses in her aptly named short play, "The Large Jar," coming to Providence's Fringe Festival next week. The play is inspired by two of her friends who were diagnosed with cancer, both of whom were sent home with similar such jars, chock-full of prescription pain pills.

The jar marks a defining moment in the treatment process, when the doctor acknowledges that there is nothing left to be done from a curative standpoint and shifts towards pain reduction and keeping a patient comfortable for the remainder of their life.

"It's a striking metaphor," Gill said. "It's this visual representation of a long — or maybe not so long — death."

The 35-minute, one-woman play stars Katherine O'Sullivan, who portrays a woman in her late 60s to early 70s who is coming to terms with her terminal ovarian cancer. Told through a series of memories and flashbacks, the single-person narrative really allows the audience to get a sense of the character's perspective, her thoughts, her feelings, without anyone else to cloud their perception of her.

"I felt like there's so much to her story," Gill said. "To hear it all from her point of view is so compelling."

Being a one-woman show, the fate of the performance therefore rests squarely on the shoulders of O'Sullivan, whom Gill said really understands the story she wanted to tell through the character.

"Working with just the one actor is very intimate," Gill added. "It's just the three of us," referring to herself, O'Sullivan and the show's director, Siobhan Dunne, "it can be quite intense."

Gill said she hopes her play will inspire the audience to think more about topics that, like death, are generally avoided.

"They can be scary, so people prefer not to think about it," Gill said. "It will be moving, and it invites you to think about it more."

"The Large Jar" will be performed three times during the Fringe PVD festival at the Waterfire Arts Center Performance Garage. Shows will be Thursday at 8 p.m. and both Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15 each.