Friends in need ALL EDITIONS

• Published in: Newsday
• Main Author: CELIA WREN. Celia Wren is the managing editor at American Theater
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 06.06.2004
• Edition: Combined editions
• Subjects: Brown, Henry; Plank, Tina; Raymond, Jonathan; Volterra, Trixie

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.