Susan Hussey’s play, "The Toxic Wave" has received the compliment of a hard cover edition from the University of Tampa Press. It is paired with Hussey’s earlier AIDS meditation, "The Dressing Room." The Iceman fortifies himself with a single malt on ice, three fingers of water laced loosely upon libation. He reflects that to some the islely malt sparkling in his hand might be considered toxic - over a lifetime, probably so - though an evening's refreshment troubles him little and is rarely denied.

The Toxic Wave begins with a conversation between Michael and Andrew. They are speaking from a changeless limbo seven years after their death.  Their deaths were consequent of contact with a toxic chemical, identified as toximate.  This contact took place while playing in an unsecured Dumpster behind a manufacturing plant, near their homes. The scene is short, well written and deftly sidesteps any temptation to cloy.

Seven of the fifteen characters have dual roles and one has a triple role. In Eliot’s notes to The Waste Land he indicates "that all women are the same woman." Here Ms. Hussey’s mothers and fathers (of the dead children) are played by the same actress and actor. The two ostensible villains of the piece are played by the same actor. The wife of one of these is, as well, an investigator from the EPA and a reporter from a local newspaper. Each character is clearly delineated. The life of a live performance will be found in the nuances a competent actor brings to these doubles and triples.

Act 1 is comprised of five scenes and Act 2 of seven. Each illuminates a different time frame in a tragedy that unfolds across seven years. Each scene depicts participants of the tragedy at different points of this timeline.  One of the mothers refuses to settle her law suit because her son would then become a canceled check. It is sadly apparent that even if pain is all that is left of remembered love, it is no less difficult to relinquish.  The tragedy in The Toxic Wave is not one that took place on a single day, but rather one that has continued during each day of the seven years chronicled in the play.

The play starts in the eternity of the children’s limbo. It then coils backward in time to its penultimate scene, the discovery of the bodies in the dumpster. As a masterstroke Ms. Hussey saves her final scene for the "Night before the boys death / friends meeting before supper. The meeting takes place at the Dumpster. Michael and Andrew discuss aspects of their broken family lives. The parents, therefore, are also implicated in the tragedy. The children have been poisoned by more than toximate or if the pun is intended, precisely by toxi-mates.   It is tribute to Ms. Hussey that each of her characters are drawn to share our common humanity. The seemingly least human character in the play, Bureaucrat Woman, is delineated as such because she speaks for the author: "I'm off the clock now, asshole. Buy a fucking lock."  In the theatre of advocacy, the audience will, no doubt,  contemplate the dumpsters left unlocked in their own lives.

The last scene mirrors the first. In the first, the children play in the eternity of a shadowy afterlife. In the final scene, the children play within the eternity of a windswept summer evening, neither child suspecting this night to be their last.

The volume retails at $22.00.  The single malt retails for considerably more. The Iceman is torn between the relative merits of the two. His advice will affect the lives of many. What purchase is the more morally imperative? Consult your local bookseller.

The Iceman Commendeth.