Familiar

Playwright, Danai Gurira, can have it any way she likes, but she will get some friendly advice here.  She's penned a terrific story, Familiar, about the emotional struggles of an African family who moved to America.  How far does assimilation go?  Does it include religion? What about traditions?  And by the tenor of the dialogue one suspects that much of the assimilation may just be superficial to some - a pathway to a better life but the strong ties to tribalism and roots may never go away - especially for those left behind who may simply scoff at the Western way of life.

The story revolves around a typical family (read dysfunctional):  A baby sister (Ito Aghayere) who is idealistic, nomadic, lost, and stumbling through an artistic life (read as - in America you need to work, sister); an older stronger sister (Roslyn Ruff) who has placed Jesus and her skinny liberal white fiancee (Joby Earle) at the center of her world; a pro-western mom (Tamara Tunie); and her quiet, hen-pecked husband (Harold Surratt).  Enter stage right, an older sister (Myra Lucretia Taylor) here from Zimbabwe for the wedding to preside over an African marriage tradition and you have a powder-keg on your hands.

Ms Tunie plays her role with impeccable skill, demeanor, and poise.  Ms. Taylor is a powerful foil to the entire family.  Mr. Joby and his brother (Joe Tippett) play a polar opposite brother-bother team that lays bare stereotypical American archetypes. Quite frankly, Mr. Tippett and Ms. Tunie take the top slots in this play among an already great cast of actors.

Ms Gurira needs to tighten this leaky ship, however.  Too long.  Far too many un-explored paths dropped on us and never quite explained.  Sons of the youngest sister (Melanie Nicholls-King)?  A dress brought in and tossed aside?  Struggles of Chris's brother never fully explored (although his pitch-perfect portrayal of the classic fuck-up son was brilliant!)?  Why did mom has such a visceral reaction to her sister arriving from Africa without fully knowing the reason?  There is certainly a twist in this plot - but it comes far too late in the action.  Remove a lot of useless chatter and exposition and bring the twist up forward.  Shorten Act I and get this ship at just under 2 hours.  Exquisite sets by Clint Ramos and superb lighting by Tyler Micoleau.

A very entertaining look at a not-so-familiar problem within the context of family, which is an all-too-familiar problem.

Scenes From a Marriage

The effect is jarring.  The result is jarring.  Nothing about Ivo Van Hove's re-imagination of Ingmar Bergman's already jolting TV mini-series and later screenplay involves bliss and happiness.  On the contrary, the scenes from this approximately 20 year relationship depict the most difficult parts, the growth, change, and friction that marriage can bring.

Mr. Van Hove chose to divide this stage play version into 2 parts.  The first act being 3 scenes in isolated mini-theaters built inside the theater.  These mini-theaters allow sight and sounds from each concurrent scene to waft into the other.  I believe this was meant to evoke the feeling of memory and remembering the past over and over.  Sight-lines through a window into a central room where the actors all collected themselves evoked a similar feeling of a bit of visual snip-it of memories.  All a bit off-putting when the action starts, but once you realize this is intended, you settle in for this bumpy ride.

As you can tell, since there are 3 scenes running concurrently, there must be 3 sets of actors playing the roles of Johan ad Marianne.  Casting appears to me to be quite intentional too.  The actors were the furthest thing from 3 sets of the same people.  Super handsome and hunky Alex Hurt and Susannah Flood are the youngest and most eager of the 3 couples in approximately the first 5 years of their marriage.  Dallas Roberts and Roslyn Ruff are the middle couple struggling with years of habits and rituals, boredom, and long standing issues in the marriage.  Arliss Howard and Tina Benko round out the couples as the oldest and desperate for change.  There's an affair, a one-sided discontent and issues buried deep and repressed over the years.

When  you exit the theater for a 30 minute intermission and told to all re-enter through the main doors, you can only imagine that they must be transforming the theater into a single stage somehow.  Of course they do - and it's a common performance space in the middle with the seats surrounding it - all the walls have been lifted above to reveal this massive space in the entire theater.

Act two is distinctly different with fascinating results.  All 3 couples appear on stage but this time they all recite the dialogue and act out the scene in triplicate.  Stereophonic dialogue and action.  What further throws you off is that the actors all fluidly interchange with each other and speak male to female among the various couples - throwing off your regional thoughts about the couples and making you focus on the dialogue not the physical characters themselves.  This part is sequentially later than the first act and the discord escalates into a fight.  They are fiercely independent people with modern ideas about marriage and relationships.  It's not your parents marriage.  Speaking of parents, Mia Katigbak aptly portrays the mother of Marianne and reveals this stark approach to marriage that the older generation took.

The play concludes in the last scene with only the oldest of the 3 couples where the couple is divorced, moved on in life and both re-married, but still attracted to each other in a quite honest and creatively lit bedroom scene.  We hear some of that memory-evoking music (still played on a turntable because of course they wold still have one) that the couple would have enjoyed in the 70's which brings us all back to the original time the couple must have met and fell in love.

You will certainly leave the theater with feelings about what you saw.  One older woman in the audience asked me during the end of intermission if I was married.  I, of course, answered "No" to which she responded "Well do you understand any of this?".   I told her "I think I get it".  To which she replied "I lived through this.  I am hating it and loving it at the same time".   Now that's good theater!