Alone With Friends – A Set of Holiday Traditions

Alone with Friends is the latest in an on-going collaboration between the Holiday House NYC and the Fundamental Theater Project.   Every year, the Holiday House invites designers to decorate a New York City home for the Holidays.  This year proceeds go to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  In the last three years, the Holiday House has also been home to the Fundamental Theater Company’s one act Holiday themed play.  Performed on the fourth floor in a large space, this is always a high point of the season for myself as a reviewer.  The combination of the Holiday House and a well-done one act is Christmas treat.

Rob Bradford, Allison Henning, Alison Blair & Blake Merriman in Alone With Friends

Alone with Friends is a romantic comedy, which puts a few relationship stereotypes to good use in order to weave a complex narrative together in a short amount of time.  The play explores the relationship between two long time friends; Adam and Tom, as Tom express a romantic interest in Adam’s sister.  Instead of the expected anger or sibling protectiveness, Adam is aghast because his sister Matilda is horrible relationship material.  Matilda is a beautiful, slightly out of reach woman that makes men swoon without thought or hesitancy.

Adam also has a semi-girlfriend. Bridget.  They have been together(-ish) for a long time and have fallen into some bad habits.  Adam, the child of privilege and genial good looks, is the type of all around guy that most men would like to be.  Self-confident without being arrogant, he is oblivious to his own short-comings.  A trait reinforced by over indulgent friends and family.

But Matilda is the untortured catalyst of the piece.  She has an easy beauty, natural flirtatiousness, and an elegant grace that makes the simplest of movements vaguely sexual.  There is no question why poor Tom would fall for her, and no question that it will ultimately end badly – it is the when that is still up in the air.

Writer Ben Holbrook has put a ticking clock on the proceeds by having the foursome get ready to travel to Adam and Matilda’s grandparents for the Holidays.  And director Nicola Murphy does a good job of moving the action without forcing the pace.

All of the acting is very good, with Rob Bradford’s Adam and Blake Merriman’s Tom doing some great work as long time friends who are breaking out of well-established patterns.   Alison Blair’s Bridget is played so well that the audience immediately identifies with her joys and frustrations. Allison Henning handles the difficult role of Matilda perfectly, walking a tight rope of indifference, bemusement and jest.  As played in the Holiday House, it seems a stolen holiday moment from a family that is familiar.  The combination of the Holiday House and Alone With Friends makes for a great destination this season.

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Alone With Friends

Playwright: Ben Holbrook

Director: Nicola Murphy

Cast: Alison Blair, Rob Bradford, Allison Henning, Blake Merriman

website

TURKEY serves up Holiday Humor

A visit to the New York Holiday House (website) is a fun trip through a kaleidoscope of designers in an East Side Townhouse.  Topping off the experience, is a brand new one-act play, Turkey by Ben Holbrook, presented by the Fundamental Theater Project (website).

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Turkey takes light-hearted look at family dynamics during the holidays, when forced proximity cannot be avoided. Spencer Aste portrays Jefferson, a petulant adult who refuses to play nice during a holiday dinner with his extended family.  Jefferson just lost an election where no one in the family supported his campaign, so he has decided to ignore their company.  He avoids dinner by hiding out in the parlor with cater-waiter Ted, Sam Underwood.  The two entertain themselves through drinks, jokes and magic - until interrupted by Sebastian, Jefferson’s brother.

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Nicola Murphy as Dotty and Sam Underwood as Ted in Turkey at New York Holiday House

Garth Kravits plays Sebastian, a younger brother who sometimes scolds Jefferson for missing the family dinner and other times tries to join him in hiding out.  It falls to serious niece Dotty, Nicola Murphy, to bring these two men back into the family fold.

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Turkey works smoothly on the superficial level of quick witted banter and suggestive innuendo.  The cast is on form with insults, jokes, retorts and flirtation delivered quickly and believably.  Making the dialog works requires a sense of spontaneity, and the author is well served by this cast.  

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But the real joy of Turkey is watching how easily adults can fall back into childish roles at holiday time.  With no one to break them out of it, Jefferson and Sebastian act out their old roles as co-conspirators and rivals with young Ted as their audience.  It falls to Dotty to remind them of their duty to the family, a role she seems destined to do for innumerable family gatherings in the future.

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Turkey works particularly well in the chaotic design of the Holiday House, where it seems normal to be eavesdropping on how the rich and silly live.

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Turkey

Holiday House New York (See Fundamental Theater Projectwebsite for dates)

Playwright: Ben Holbrook

Director: Sam Underwood

Cast: Spencer Aste, Garth Kravits, Nicola Murphy, Sam Underwood

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Holiday House New York proceeds benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation