Ben Target stars in his one-man play, Lorenzo, at 59E59 Theaters, directed by Adam Brace and Lee Griffiths.
Ben Target’s solo show Lorenzo is an end-of-life comedy that is both joyful and surprising. Written and performed by Target (pronounced Tar-ZHAY), and directed by Adam Brace and Lee Griffiths, it is an autobiographical 65 minutes that focuses on a time when Target gave up his work as a comedian to become a live-in caretaker for an aging family friend, “Uncle” Lorenzo Wong.
Target welcomes audience members with a Lilliputian cup of coffee and warm smile. On each seat is a pencil and four-by-four piece of paper with the question: “What is your fantasy death?” After he collects the answers, Target begins the show, first explaining that “this show is performance art with the occasional punchline.”
Lorenzo is both an intergenerational story about two roommates as well as a love letter to the eponymous uncle himself. Target moved into Lorenzo’s home in North Wembley, London, in September 2020, following a phone call from his cousin Esther, informing him that his octogenarian uncle had had a stroke. Although Target hadn’t seen Lorenzo for 15 years, he had fond childhood memories of him and decided that he “was primed for this care lark.”
An award-winning stand-up comedian, Target wrote and stars in his autobiographical solo show about intergenerational roommates.
Target describes Lorenzo as “the only adult with whom he ever felt safe.” A fugitive from a rickety Hong Kong upbringing, Lorenzo had lived in Cuba during his youth and was later ousted from the country by Fidel Castro himself for being “cheeky, or as he preferred to say, for being mistaken as a Chinese spy.” His gravely ill mother urged him “to find a place in London and she would follow.” Lorenzo did. But when he arrived and telephoned her, she had died.
What might have been a lonely life in London for the twentysomething Lorenzo took an unexpected turn when Target’s grandparents invited Lorenzo, a fellow architect, to be a live-in colleague in their home. It turned into a permanent arrangement.
Target’s childhood was not overflowing with affection, but Lorenzo became a surrogate father to him. Lorenzo taught him the importance of exercising his imagination. He reserved an hour a day for the young Target and himself to practice what he would call, “Silly O’Clock, a time for when the magical combination of precision and idiocy were honoured.”
Target recounts another magical combination that he and Lorenzo shared in more recent years. In January 2021 he heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a masked nurse holding a liter of liquid morphine. He remembers turning to Lorenzo and asking for an explanation:
Target: What’s all this about?
Lorenzo: Well, I didn’t think they were actually going to do it.
Target: Do what?
Lorenzo: I might have called the palliative care team and told then I was in pain.
Target: Are you in pain?
Lorenzo: Not that much.
Target says that he did the responsible thing. He invited Lorenzo to sit with him around the kitchen table to sip morphine from teacups. They then tried to figure out which biscuit goes best with the narcotic. And the answer, arrived at after some experimentation, was ginger snaps.
Actor-playwright Target tackles death, caregiving, and grief in his life-affirming story. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
The simple set by Tom Hartshornes (for Morice Designs) is dominated by a carpenter’s table that serves as a dining table, woodworking table, and storage space for a hi-tech toilet on wheels. Although Target hoped that the last item would be met with enthusiasm by Lorenzo, who suffered from occasional incontinence, his uncle was not thrilled.
While the morphine tale is amusing, Target passes on true wisdom to everybody as he summed up the Philosophy of Saws, according to Lorenzo Wong. Standing at the wood working table, Target demonstrated how two respective saws from Eastern and Western carpentry could slice through small blocks of wood. Although it seemed that both blocks of wood cut evenly well, Target shared that, as Lorenzo once taught him, the Eastern saw, with the teeth on its saw face toward you, engendered control and precision; the Western one, with its teeth facing away from you, allowed the carpenter to get his whole body weight behind the cut, for power and speed. Thus, Lorenzo mischievously would say to Target: “When you give everything of yourself to the world, you end up exhausted.”
Lorenzo reveals the exhaustingly difficult job of being a live-in caretaker of a dying person. But Target’s solo show also lightheartedly reminds one of the reciprocal rewards that come with it.
Target scores by bringing gentle humility, an absurdist sense of humor, and utter honesty to his play about his favorite adopted uncle. Although there are glitzier shows in town, Lorenzo tells an important truth.
Ben Target’s Lorenzo plays at 59E59 Theaters (59 E. 59 St.) through May 19. Evening performances are at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:15 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit 59e59.org.
Playwright:Ben Target
Director: Adam Brace & Lee Griffiths
Sets: Tom Hartshorne
Lighting: Robert Wells
