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<\/p>\nPor JEAN LOWERISON | Noticias de la zona alta<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been to a few family holiday gatherings that were less than purely joyous occasions. Apparently playwright Stephen Karam has, too. Or maybe he\u2019s just read author Napoleon Hill, who once listed six basic human fears: poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love of someone, old age and death.<\/p>\n
Karam\u2019s play \u201cThe Humans\u201d gives us a family who collectively fear (or suffer) all those things. It\u2019s a bit of a heavy lift for what he bills as a comedy, but it won the Best Play Tony in 2016, and plays through Feb. 2 at San Diego Repertory Theatre.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Thanksgiving, and the Blake family has gathered in younger daughter Brigid\u2019s recently rented ground floor\/basement duplex in New York City\u2019s Chinatown. Brigid (Kate Rose Reynolds), a wannabe composer, and boyfriend Richard Saad (Brian Mackey), studying social work, are hosting the festivities.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an odd place, made by connecting the dark basement section with two dingy little rooms above it. There\u2019s a steep curved stairway and a window that looks out on a trashy alley.<\/p>\n
The rest of the family has come in from Pennsylvania. Parents Erik (Jeffrey Meek) and Deirdre (Elizabeth Dennehy) live in Scranton and have taken charge of Erik\u2019s mother Momo (Rosina Reynolds). Momo suffers from dementia and is in a wheelchair. She is given to loud outbursts or spells of quiet muttering, mostly incoherent. She will spend much of this Thanksgiving sleeping on the couch.<\/p>\n
Erik and Deirdre have spent their careers on what used to be adequately paid middle-class jobs: Erik doing maintenance at a school; Deirdre an office manager. But economic times aren\u2019t what they once were. Deirdre complains that two new male hires are making more than she does.<\/p>\n
Older daughter Aimee (Amanda Sitton), a lesbian lawyer in Philadelphia, has the heaviest lift of all: a triple-whammy of problems. She\u2019s learned that she\u2019s not making partner (\u201cThat means go find another job,\u201d she says). She\u2019s mourning a recent breakup with her girlfriend, and she needs surgery for ulcerative colitis. How will she manage?<\/p>\n
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But Brigid is excited about her new place. She wants to be a musician but tends bar to pay off student debt until that becomes a reality. Boyfriend Richard is from a bit more money and will come into a trust fund in two years when he turns 40. Envious mutterings are heard from Erik, who advises him to \u201csave your money now\u201d because \u201cno matter what you have, it all goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erik can speak to that. He\u2019s worked for some 30 years at a school in Scranton but intends to tell the family today that he\u2019s lost it because of an indiscretion with a teacher.<\/p>\n
Most of the family still manages to fake it and at least pretend that life is good, or good enough, at least for this day. They laugh together at little jokes, though Deirdre fails to giggle when she encounters a cockroach the size of a mouse.<\/p>\n
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But when Aimee leads a sing-along of an Irish blessing before they eat, things seem almost normal.<\/p>\n
Director Todd Salovey has found the right cast for this play. Meek\u2019s Erik is heartbreaking as he tries to be the strong one for Dennehy\u2019s Deirdre, but she\u2019s too smart not to know that tougher times are coming.<\/p>\n
Sitton\u2019s Aimee exudes a confidence she may be faking, giving it away when she asks in passing whether it\u2019s better to go through life unhappy alone or unhappy with someone else.<\/p>\n
Kate Rose Reynolds is utterly charming as Brigid, still hopeful and too young to be beaten down, even by the scary noises in her apartment. Mackey is the perfect foil for her as Rich. He exudes the confidence of the trust-fund kid who need not worry \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n
Momo is wonderfully played by a nearly unidentifiable Rosina Reynolds. (The Reynolds we\u2019ve seen so often has so much energy that it\u2019s a tribute to her considerable acting chops that you could even buy her as Momo.) And what a treat to see the Reynolds ladies on the same stage.<\/p>\n
Special kudos to the tech crew here, beginning with Giulio Perrone\u2019s strange dual-level set, darkly lit (that only makes sense in this play) by Chris Rynne and exuding all those sudden, shocking sounds by Melanie Chen Cole.<\/p>\n
The Tony-winning \u201cThe Humans\u201d is an odd piece, combining near sitcom-like family comedy with existential angst. The fit doesn\u2019t always work, but it\u2019s worth pondering.<\/p>\n