Review: Opening up is tough, ‘... what the end will be’ shows why we have to try
The set design stands out first.
You’re used to intimate spaces at Three Bone Theatre, but this one feels different — more involved. We’ve inhabited a living room before — just a few months ago with “Mary Jane” — but their latest production, “... what the end will be,” feels closer.
Rather than the seating wrapping around the stage, the stage offers space for the seating. One hugs the railing of the stairs while the others hove around the closely designed living room, making it feel more like peering in through the window than sitting back for a play.
The first to enter the space is Maxwell (Marvin King) and Bartholomew (Tim Bradley), the latter is the father of the former and is confined to a wheelchair as he enters the last phase of treatment for stage four bone cancer. Rather than being holed up in hospitals, his son has brought his father home. But that hasn’t happened without a degree of tension.
Immediately you feel tension from Maxwell, his answers short and flung like darts as he cradles an old fashioned in his hands. His father has always been a sore spot for him — never offering the love he wanted and yet, in Max’s mind, still receiving grace from everyone around him. Everyone loves Bart, but only Max knows the true monster biding time inside.
Accompanying Bart is Chloe (Mariana Corrales), his nurse and caretaker at the hospital who will visit often to perform check-ups on Bart. Also at home is Max’s son Tony (Dionte Darko), a recently celebrated 18-year-old who is also a rising football star despite his waning interest in the sport.
There’s also Max’s partner Charles (Victor Kuchmaner), who returns home after some time away, suggesting the decision to bring Bart into the home hasn’t settled well with the couple, though maybe not for reasons people would expect. It’s revealed that Max cheated on his wife with Charles, coming out in his personal life but hiding that side of himself at his prestigious job that continues to grow more fruitful for him. Bart is also gay, immediately moving in with his partner Freddy after his wife and Max’s mother died. Meanwhile, Tony seems to be in step with his grandfather and father as he dates Antoine (Steven Longayo) — though the dating part happens more in secrecy.
What follows I can only describe as a test in patience. Unlike previous Three Bone productions this season — “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” and “Mary Janes” — where the difficult character generally comes around to offer the audience a breath, Max continuously sucks the air from the space, incapable of offering anyone a glimpse into the person who Charles fell in love with or who enjoyed moments with family. He’s stiff and unwavering with a festering arrogance that completely distances him from everyone around him, including the audience.
King plays him perfectly — constantly lording over everyone with this perceived superiority. Fully pieced together compared to these mismatched characters around him. There’s some moments of levity — Antoine steals the show anytime he’s on stage and Bart, mercifully, offers some jokes and barbs along the way — but it still produces a trying watch. That’s no fault of anyone on the production side as it seems how the play is tailored to operate. It made me think back to the other two plays, which offered these touching moments of community between groups of women; sometimes they were heartbreaking and brought you to tears, sometimes it was a good laugh, but there was always this sense of camaraderie that brought them together even when they fought.
I didn’t feel that here. Not to say men can’t create a community open to honest conversation, but it’s more elusive. It all hinges on Max, who seems to have self hate not because he’s gay just like his father, but because he has so much hatred and anger toward Bart. Just that his sexuality associates with him feels like an internal betrayal. He medicates with a heavy helping of alcohol but it doesn’t work.
I think there’s definitely some peace found by the end of the play and we are left with Max in a much more open place with a hope that he’ll grow on this. He doesn’t get the encompassing closure with his father that he wants, but he puts to bed the hatred inside himself.
“... what the end will be” asks us to engage in a tough conversation between men and the swirling ideas of what masculinity has to mean. It’s the kind of conversation that seems more palatable with art. Earlier this week, NEA funding for Three Bone Theatre was cut due to ongoing arts and science cuts from the Trump administration. They were one of many Charlotte groups affected.
It won’t turn out the lights but it will dim them a bit. Without this vessel to understand life and ourselves, how will we be able to come to terms with what’s around us? “...what the end will be” was able to communicate and come to peace, but as the arts are pulled back more, will the next conversation be able to happen?
“... what the end will be” has one final run at Three Bone Theatre this weekend. The final four shows are Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the first three shows beginning at 8 p.m. and the final one starting at 2 p.m. Find tickets and ways to support Three Bone at threebonetheatre.com.
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This story was originally published May 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM.
