THE STORY: An astrological phenomenon presupposes that when the planet Saturn completes its cycle every thirty years of a human’s life, that life is affected by deep trauma and change. The play SATURN RETURNS follows Gustin, a radiologist living in Grand Rapids Michigan at the ages of 88, 58 and 28. Gustin in inextricably bound to the women in his life. At 88 his nurse, Suzanne; at 58 his daughter, Zephyr; and at 28, his wife, Loretta. Gustin endures as the women come and go, live and die. By the end of the play all three ages are represented onstage, watching the former versions of themselves make decisions and mistakes that define their future.
“[Noah Haidle’s] most prodigious gift may be his psychological sophistication. Beautifully written…the limpid play is really a haunting, in which Haidle finds a way of dramatizing the presence of absence in all of us.” —The New Yorker.
