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Castoreum oil, [Henry Brown] assures Cookie, is a cure for "earache, deafness, dropsical abscesses, not to mention gout, headache and colic" that also "stops hiccoughs, induces sleep, prevents sleepiness, [and] strengthens sight." Not surprisingly, bamboozling the Chinese with th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNewsday
Main Author CELIA WREN. Celia Wren is the managing editor at American Theater
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 06.06.2004
EditionCombined editions
Subjects
Brown, Henry
Plank, Tina
Raymond, Jonathan
Volterra, Trixie
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Summary:Castoreum oil, [Henry Brown] assures Cookie, is a cure for "earache, deafness, dropsical abscesses, not to mention gout, headache and colic" that also "stops hiccoughs, induces sleep, prevents sleepiness, [and] strengthens sight." Not surprisingly, bamboozling the Chinese with this stuff proves easier said than done. As the get- rich plan hits some snags, "The Half-Life" juxtaposes Cookie and Henry's saga with the story of Tina Plank and Trixie Volterra, two miscreant teenage girls who become soul mates in the 1980s outside Portland, Ore. Stranded with a bunch of aging hippies in an antiquated commune, the duo amuse themselves by scripting a movie, whose Edward Gorey- esque medical plot [Jonathan Raymond] describes with a delightfully dark wit that he otherwise keeps under wraps. Meanwhile, Trixie and Tina's neighbor discovers two skeletons on his property, a find that sparks a media frenzy, to tragic results.