TRIBUTE by Bernard Slade
Considering the alternative, dying has a lot to recommend it. In recent years screenwriters and playwrights have even found it an unexpected source of dark and cathartic humor. Bernard Slade, the author of the long-running comedy Same Time, Next Year, is the first, however, to write about it as if he were composing humorous jingles for Hallmark cards: "Out but not down."
His hero, Scottie Templeton (Jack Lemmon), is a charming, but irresponsible public relations man with a bad case of leukemia. Scottie's one gift has been his ability to...