THE THEATER MIRROR, New England's LIVE Theater Guide
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MARQUEE | USHER | SEATS |
INTERMISSION | CURTAIN |
note: entire contents copyright 2006 by Larry Stark
Scenic Design by James Noone
Costume Design by Laura Churba
Lighting Design by Dennis Parichy
Original Music & Sound Design by John Gromada
Casting Director David Caparelliotis
Production Stage Manager Thomas M. KauffmanBR>
Stage Manager Eileen Ryan Kelly
Becca........Donna Bullock
Izzy...........Geneva Carr
Howie..........Jordan Lage
Nat.......Maureen Anderman
Jason.........Troy Deutsch
PREAMBLES:
"I only know that I don't want to die as an act purely of nature, of this world ... I want my poor value to exist past me, somewhere else."
--- Richard Gilman, theater critic and Yale drama professor
Some time ago a great, good, long-time friend was told, the week before her delivery-date, that her son had been strangled by his umbilical-cord and would be born dead.
And I am 74 and being kept alive by three bottles of pills that prevent heart-attacks.
It should be a surprise, but the parents played by Donna Bullock and Jordan Lage in David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" are trying to live past the fact that their 4-year-old son was killed when chasing his dog into the path of an automobile. The people around them --- her sister (Geneva Carr) and her mother (Maureen Anderman), and the high-school senior (Troy Deutsch) who swerved to avoid hitting the dog --- cannot avoid the sudden eruptions of that death into what feel like everyday conversations. The play is carefully, subtly crafted, it is flawlessly acted and achingly directed by John Tillinger. But Lindsay-Abaire says only "These people still hurt!" and his psycho-docudrama remains carefully observed but unresolved. Perhaps such people must live forever in this horrible limbo; perhaps the playwright could not finish the arc of his play; perhaps huge audiences should be made aware of others' pain. But without even the suggestion of a possible solution (even DEATH OF A SALESMAN suggested that!) the pain goes out of the theatre without resolution.
Why would so many people pay so much to go home with that experience?
Love,
===Anon.
( a k a larry stark )