Family Dynamics Rebuilt in The Best We Could

The Best We Could (a family tragedy) is a thoughtful and entertaining play deconstructing myths around parenthood and responsibility. It doesn’t blow up those relationships, but it does reevaluate parental roles in the context of growing up and leaning into adult values.

Brain D. Coats and Aya Cash 

The Best We Could uses a father daughter cross country road trip to highlight the subtle changes in attitudes and roles. The outstanding cast starts with Aya Cash as the daughter, Ella, and Brian D. Coats as Marc, the father. The trip is proposed by Peg (Constance Shulman). Peg is Lou's wife and she is pushing to get him engaged in life again. Lou has lost his job at a biomedical research institute. He has become old man now struggling to find a job in his field. 

Marc and Peg depend on his income and so the job lose is devastating for the couple. On top of this, Brandy, the couple’s dog, dies. But the dog’s death does provide an opportunity to motivate Marc. Peg convinces him to fly out to the west coast to pick up his daughter and new dog, then drive back to New Jersey with the new dog. Separately Peg convinces her daughter that she must accompany her father because Marc is depressed and defeated. 

And so the trip begins with a slow reversal of roles, which progresses as the trip continues. Marc is a chatty and distracted man, interacting with strangers, much to Ella’s annoyance. Ella struggles to get him focused on the road, his job, or the sights, but nothing truly engages his attention until they hit Denver. In Denver Marc visits an old friend and colleague, Lou (Frank Wood). Lou’s company has an opening and Marc asks, more and more adamantly, for a job at the company. We realize there is more to his story as Marc gets desperate and will even take a lower paid and lower seniority job. Lou got his first big break with Marc and yet Lou seems hesitant to promise anything. 

Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, Peg attempts to talk with Amanda (Maureen Sebastian). Amada, who seems obsessed with Zumba, declines to interrupt her workout to speak with Peg. This is where a sense of dread begins. Peg manically asks for Amada's help and is rebuffed repeatedly. Suddenly the reason that Marc was fired becomes even more murky.

When Marc loses out on Lou's job, Ella confronts Lou and demands to know why. Thus begins the slow revel as to what happened and the consequences. The story is obvious, but freshly told. The parental roles are now almost fully reversed as Ella goes back to speak with her family about what she has learned.

The Best We Could is told on a bare stage with Maureen Sebastian narrating the story, the backstory and the consequences of the casts’ actions. Ms. Sebastian is fantastic both acting in and narrating the show. She switches from dispassionate observer to cast member and back with ease and honesty.

Author Emily Feldman has created a nuanced play that is funny, familiar and both heartwarming and heart wrenching. At a speedy 90 minutes, it does not seem rushed or mawkish. Much of the credit goes to Director Daniel Aukin who allows the cast to move deliberately without sacrificing the emotions behind the story. Produced on an empty stage, The Best We Could (a family tragedy) focusses on the story of a family that loses its own story. It is great.

The Best We Could (a family tragedy)

Playwright: Emily Feldman | Director: Daniel Aukin | Cast: Aya Cash, Brian D. Coats, Maureen Sebastian, Constance Schulman, Frenk Wood

website

Skintight Wears Its Beautiful Skin Lightly

It takes a moment for your mind to adjust to Idina Menzel in a non-musical, but only a moment. She steps onto the Laura Pels’ stage and takes command, her character demanding supportive noises from her father.  Playing Jodi Issacs, a mother in her mid-forties whose husband left her for a 24 year hottie, Idina blazes with self-righteous pity and a small amount of anger that comes off more as serious annoyance. Jodi is about to get a lot more annoyed.

Jodi has flown in from LA to surprise her father on his 70^th birthday and to bask in a little parental comfort. Her father, Elliot (Jack Weatherall), doesn’t want to celebrate his birthday, hates surprises and doesn’t do parental comfort well. Elliot is gay fashion designer that sells sex and the clothes that support it. It is impossible not to think of Calvin Klein, since the backstory of the poor Hungarian Jew that makes good mimics Mr. Klein (although the home borough of Bronx has been replaced by the trendier Brooklyn) and because Mr. Weatherall projects exactly what one would expect Mr. Klein to be like.

Jack WEtherall, Will Brittain, Idina Menzel and Eli Gleb

Worse, for Jodi, is that Elliot has a much younger boyfriend, Oklahoma boy Trey (Will Brittain) chosen mainly for handsome looks. Trey is the same age as Jodi’s son Benjamin (Eli Gleb). The fact her ex-husband and her father are now both involved with sexy creatures in their 20s, means that Jodi’s escape to New York is very little escape after all.

And this house was never her home. It is a steel and grey showplace that, at first, doesn’t really look like anyone’s home, but Elliot and Trey fit the place well. Jodi walks right up to the point of demanding her father choose her or Trey, but pulls back when the answer becomes obvious.

Skintight is very funny, occasionally titillating and a lovely chance for every actor to show off in a few great scenes. On the other hand, it rarely connects to the audience. Everyone stays in their lane when I would have expected a little more chaos.

Eli Gleb and Will Brittain

Will Brittain has moments that stand out, because his character is often charged with being more than an attractive cardboard cutout of a character. I would like to have seen more chances taken with the excellent cast.

Playwright Joshua Harman uses Skintight to ask if beauty is as critically important as our society has made it. His answer is that – yes, it is. And the answer is dispatched with very little irony. Director Daniel Aukin moves the pieces of the play excellently, but I was left somehow wanting more.

Playwright: Joshua Harmon

Director: Daniel Aukin

Cast: Will Brittain, Eli Gleb, Indina Menzel, Jack Wetherall, Stephen Carrasco, Cynthia Mace

website

-->

Heartless at The Signature: Surrealist Black Comedy that Works

Sam Shepard’s new play, Heartless, at the Pershing Square Signature Theater Center is definitely not going to be everyone’s taste.  However, if you enjoy slightly surrealist black comedy, you could hardly do better.  There isn’t much of a plot, besides the exploration of family ties in a dysfunctional family.

.

Lois Smith as Mable Murphy in Heartless

Lois Smith plays Mable Murphy, the wheel chair bound matriarch of a Hollywood Hills family - with a view of the Valley, not the good side.  Mable enjoys suffering from old age, which is treated with pain pills and antidepressants.  With a full time nurse, and a daughter that dotes on her, Mable rules the roost.  Ms. Smith commands the stage with a presence just as Mable commands the house.

.

The one daughter who rebels is Sally, played by Julianne Nicholson.  When we first set eyes on her, we see a massive scar that runs the length of her torso.  She was recipient of a heart transplant when a child and her life has been influenced by it ever since.  She is always reminded of her physical fragility, but the experience also gives her emotional freedom to act on impulse, even callously, towards her family.

.

Sally has brought home a much older man who is going through what seems to be a mid-life crisis.  Gary Cole plays Roscoe, a sixty-something professor of Latin Literature, in the middle of a divorce.  Roscoe is the catalyst, who upsets the family dynamic by his presence.  But Roscoe doesn’t have any control over the situation.  Mr. Cole eloquently slides from smug to confused to resigned over the course of the play.

.

Gary Cole and Julianne Nicholson in Heartless

The “good daughter” is Lucy, played by Jenny Bacon.  This role is written a bit too broad; her anger and sarcasm too superficial. Ms. Bacon does good work trying to ground Lucy, but the character is too inconsistent to be totally believable.  The physical look of Lucy is too obvious and frumpy, and it is surprising since the rest of the design (costume, lighting and scenic) is excellent.

.

The final character is the nurse Elizabeth, played by Betty Gilpin.  It is Ms. Gilpin that brings the surreal to the reality, and then in the second half amps it up.  Ms. Gilpin and Lois Smith do a great job of walking the tightrope of tragedy and black comedy, firmly keeping the story from crashing out of control.

.

The Heartless' story locale and conversational asides constantly remind the audience of film and the movie industry.  Each of the female characters behaves as if they are starring in their private movie genre.  Gary Cole as Roscoe is alone in normality, and the question that presents itself; is he any better off?

.

Directed by Daniel Aukin, Heartless takes a while to settle into a rhythm – which is a function of the story.  If you can accept the artificial and unrealistic situations, Heartless is a crazy fun ride.  But be warned, many people don't enjoy that experience.

-----

Heartless

Playwright: Sam Shepard

Director: Daniel Aukin

Cast: Jenny Bacon, Gary Cole, Betty Gilpin, Julianne Nicholson, Lois Smith

Website