Editor : Jeannie Lieberman |
Submit an Article |
Contact Us | 
For Email Marketing you can trust
On the Shore of the Wide World
By Ron Cohen
“it’s really difficult, isn’t it?... Just, the whole business of, you know, being alive. Very complicated,” says a loquacious cab driver toward the close of Simon Stephens’ family drama On the Shore of the Wide World.
It’s hardly an original point, but it’s one that Stephens illustrates with poignant credibility as he draws us quietly and steadily into three generations of a fairly quotidian English family, living on the outskirts of Manchester. The Atlantic Theater Company production is devoid of the astounding theatrical effects that marked Stephens’ 2015 Tony-winning adaptation of the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which ran on Broadway for two years, but it provides a similarly gratifying if tamer experience.
The family in question consists of Peter and Alice Holmes; their sons, 18-year-old Alex and 15-year-old Christopher, and Peter’s father and mother, Charlie and Ellen. During the time period of less than a year covered by the play, they move through a maze of complications and challenges.
On the lighter side, we find Peter and Alice at the play’s start dealing with their decision to allow Alex’s girlfriend, Sarah, to spend the night in Alex’s room. It’s a decision complicated by Christopher’s massive crush on Sarah.
But along with this realization of their offspring’s maturity -- their looking to a wider world -- come steeper challenges. There are the intimations that their own marriage has grown stale, the destructive lure of marital infidelity, uneasy reverberations between Charlie and Ellen and the vicissitudes of age and illness. All of this and more is deepened by the intrusion of sudden tragedy, coming so unexpectedly that when it’s revealed, almost matter-of-factly, it’s a total shocker.
There are compellingly explosive moments, to be sure, but what also grabs you – perhaps even more -- is the understated web of feeling and enduring attachments created in Stephens writing and beautifully realized by the cast under Neil Pepe’s sure but sensitive direction. Whatever the problems, we see people somehow getting through and often enjoying the ephemera of daily life, having breakfast, talking about soccer players, watching television.
At the center of the play is C.J. Wilson’s splendid portrayal of Peter, a man who has trouble expressing the love he has for his wife and children, but nevertheless demonstrates it in so many ways. The tenderness and concern come to the fore even when he quickly wraps a bacon sandwich for Christopher to take on a morning bike ride. And it’s there when he hands over cash to Alex for his move to London with Sarah, another element adding to the distress of Peter and Alice.
Wilson also shows us a guy of integrity with a passion for his work as a house restorer, the business he took over from his father. It’s an integrity to family as well, as we watch him controlling the sexual tension while conversing with a comely, if pregnant, customer (nicely played by Amelia Workman) about the job he can do in fixing her home.
As Alice, Mary McCann movingly reveals the unease taking over her psyche, while demonstrating the womanly charm that keeps Peter in her orbit. Those charms fairly blossom in conversations with a new acquaintance, a man drawn to her through unfortunate circumstances, and sympathetically limned by Leroy McClain.
Ben Rosenfeld and Wesley Zurick deliver well-defined portraits, respectively, of the somewhat reserved Alex and the precocious Christopher, while Tedra Millan bubbles with frothy charm as Sarah.
Peter Maloney and Blair Brown bring depth and authority to their portrayals of Charlie, crusty and prone to drinking but affectionate, and Ellen, pondering the direction of her life. Completing the cast is Odiseas Georgiadis as the magnetic pal who lures Alex and Sarah to London.
The story travels over numerous locales – the two homes, a deserted hotel that the younger generation uses as a hangout, and various other spots around the town. Pepe’s adroit staging and Stephens’ dialogue keep things fairly evident, as Christopher Akerlind’s lights come up to define different areas of Scott Pask’s atmospheric bi-level set.
What isn’t always clear is the time frame of the scenes, and it may take some sharp attention to the dialogue or simply a leap of faith to discern or settle into what’s going on as a new scene begins.
What is clear, however, is Stephens’ deep compassion for his characters, his artfulness in bringing them to life and making you feel for them, widening your own emotional expanse. And that’s an ages-old reason to go the theater.
Off-Broadway play Playing at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater 336 West 20th Street 866-811-4111 atlantictheater.org Playing until October 8 
|
