Recently one of my readers reached out and asked if I would be open to having a reviewer post on the blog, and I said sure! Please Welcome Karin Crighton who will be covering a show from time to time on here. Check out her review of Set In The Living Room of a Small Town American Play.
Excelsior!
Set In The Living Room of a Small Town American Play opens with a table read on a bare stage and ends with a transformation that leaves the characters, and audience, fully changed.
Young Patrick Lorimer (Michael Barringer) has returned home from college in disgrace; a once-great football star and All-American boy has made a fatal error that cannot be erased. His denial-loving mother Marla (Anastasia Olowin) dotes on him while sneaking sips from the whisky bottle, trying to ease the healthy doses of disappointment heaped upon Patrick by his father Frank (Nick Fesette). Frank’s rage is compounded by a struggling business, a dishonest business partner (Harlan Alford), and an omnipresent proselytizing neighbor (Jacklyn Backhaus). And yet there is so, so, so much more to the rich world of this show.
Theater Reconstruction Ensemble created this play out of frustration; attempts to secure rights for a published and well-known play of the 1930s and 40s genre ended in rejection time and again. After realizing original content was their only avenue to exploring this particular slice of American life, resident playwright Jaclyn Backhaus and artistic director John Kurzynowski sat down and mulled over the common themes, ideas, icons, and structure of popular plays. The result is startling powerful and nothing less than spectacular. Living Room is reminiscent of Our Town, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and Grapes of Wrath while maintaining a certain modernism: one is able to believe you are watching a show from that era, but that very show provides a reflection on the era itself. The themes are all familiar but approached with a frankness that is refreshing and delightfully uncomfortable.
The sound design balances beautifully between charming and ominous. Music choices range from classic 1930s and 40s styles to mood-setting contemporary sounds all the way to ambiguous noises to match the frenzy or stillness on stage. The lighting was so subtle I rarely noticed it had changed; it flowed seamlessly with the action onstage.
The show is exceptionally cast; despite the limited age difference between Fesette and Barringer they achieve the needed father-son power dynamic. All around the acting is solid; however a little controlled. The understanding, the rehearsal, the technical aspects are all there but there are rare moments when the actors really let go and live in the moment. There are times when this is done on purpose, it is a play-within-a-table-read after all, but once the audience is comfortable and accepts that we are watching a study on the era it gets a bit frustrating to see actors “acting”. A beautiful moment where Patrick’s high school sweetheart Emily (Emily Manno) stands silently onstage, attempting to invoke the tears required by the script, is marred by little flutters of movement: hands pulling at skirts, shaking out an elbow, turning to the “director” on stage. All she needed to do was stand there and I do believe the audience would have burst into tears on her behalf; Ms. Manno’s previous scenes were potent enough that we didn’t need anything but stillness. That could be said of many of these talented actors; their presence onstage is more than enough. Nick Lehane, as Patrick’s sly boyhood friend Ned and the “director” at times, is best at role-playing within the confines of the setup. Toying with a classic gangster-movie accent of the era brought the biggest laughs from the audience of the night. Patrick Scheid deserved more laughs than he received in his charming portrayal of Cousin Carlo; the Italian import seeking employment from Frank.
This play is exceptional. It’s smart and self-aware without being heavy-handed, intense and flawed while maintaing levity and love, and poetic while speaking plainly. A rare gem of the theater; Set In The Living Room of a Small Town American Play is an experience not to be missed. For tickets, while they last, go HERE.
Set In The Living Room of a Small Town American Play
Written by Jacklyn Backhaus
Directed by John Kurzynowski
Starring
Nick Fesette as Frank Lorimer
Anastasia Olowin as Marla Lorimer
Michael Barringer as Patrick Lorimer
Lauren Swan-Potras as Penny Lorimer
Featuring Harlan Alford, Jacklyn Backhaus, Andrew Butler, Nick Lehane, Emily Marro, Sydney Matthews, Patrick Scheid, and Tina Shephard
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