Two-Play Play-by-Play

During her visit, Ed's mom treated us to two plays. Both had small casts (four actors apiece) and famous appearances (Paul Rudd, Ed Asner, and Jake Gyllenhaal). Both had innovative sets. Both had funny moments, though were, overall, sobering pieces. But I'd recommend only one of them.

Grace, a play about religion, was fantastic. Steve (Paul Rudd) and Sarah, a fundamental Christian couple, have just moved to Florida from Minnesota to open the first of what they hope will be a chain of Christian-themed hotels. Sarah, lonely in her new home while Steve works all day, eventually befriends Sam, her brilliant, lonely, injured (physically and mentally), and initially hostile neighbor. The drama escalates when the investor who promised to back Steve's venture fails to come through with the money just as Sarah's friendship with her neighbor is causing her to question her relationship with Steve. The play starts with three corpses onstage, then moves backwards for a few minutes so that the audience sees each person being shot, though the murder's motives are not clear. So instead of wondering how the play would end, I spent a tense 90 minutes trying to figure out why it ended that way. The script for this play was excellent. Each character was fully developed and distinct. The performances were all so outstanding that I couldn't decide which actor was best. One of the most interesting parts of the play was that there was only one set, though it represented two different apartments. We could see Sam in his apartment in the beginning cursing at the Christian music Sarah blared through the wall as she folded clothes only feet away from him. It was really interesting to see the action that usually would not have happened at all but rather been alluded to in lines scattered throughout. Also, the whole set slowly rotated so we could see it from all angles, and when time began to move backwards, the direction of the spinning would reverse. Very cool. This play was a hands-down winner.

I wish I could say the same about If There Is, I Haven't Found It Yet. The acting, again, was superb, and the story was compelling, on paper at least. The characters were George, a distracted father who is so consumed by writing a book about the effects of global warming that he has no time for his family; Fiona, a frazzled mother who teaches high school and misses her husband; and their obese, fifteen-year-old daughter Anna who is bullied and miserable at school and ignored by her busy parents. When George's deadbeat, profane, lovable brother Terry (played by Gyllenhaal) arrives to stay for a while, he immediately sees the mess the family is in and rather awkwardly befriends Anna. But he is an inexpert parent, and she has difficulty interpreting his unexpected kindness; she is initially confused and hostile, then grateful, then too attached, and at one point even attempts to kiss Terry. Confused and upset, Terry argues with Fiona and leaves the house, abandoning Anna. He later leaves town without saying goodbye. Meanwhile, Anna's depression is further fueled by her parents' separation, and she makes a desperate move. In the end, all the characters are working towards healthier relationships with each other.

Somehow, despite all this drama, If was a very, very slow play. The biggest fault, I think, was the lack of character development, which was rather surprising in a play with only four characters. Each of them got tons of stage time, but I felt that, while I understood their relationships with each other, I didn't really get a good sense of who each was as an individual. It was difficult to sympathize with, and therefore care about, any of them. Ed's mom commented that she'd found If much  more depressing than Grace. I thought this was interesting, because Grace ended with a triple murder whereas If ended with redemption. I agree with her, though. Grace somehow seemed more uplifting despite its grim ending. It was just better all around.

On thing If did have going for it, though, was the staging. In the beginning of the play, all of the props and scenery were stacked in a giant, messy pile in the middle of the stage. Rain came down from the ceiling into a moat that separated the stage from the audience. At the beginning of each scene, the characters would grab whatever props they needed from the pile - tables, chairs, etc. - put them in place, and use them. Then, as each scene ended, they'd shove the prop into the moat or into another place onstage. The building chaos on the stage mirrored the disintegrating state of the family. The stage also flooded during the most dramatic scene due to an overflowing bathtub, and the actors spent the last ten or so minutes of action sloshing around in ankle deep water. I thought this depiction of crisis was an interesting allusion to George's constant worry about the melting of the polar ice caps. Like Grace, If also played with the idea of multiple rooms being represented on one stage. For instance, when Anna rushed home after a traumatic experience and locked herself in the bathroom, we got to watch her curled up on the floor while her parents and Terry fought around her. She was there in the midst of them, but no one went to comfort her even though they were practically tripping over her. I thought this was pretty effective staging.

Despite the redeeming qualities present in If, I still don't think I can recommend it in good conscience. Grace, however, should not be missed.