By: centraljersey.com
In addition, plays I’ve seen at the company’s Mill Hill Playhouse venue on Front Street have tended to be issue-oriented and earnest. The present offering, by Princeton playwright James J. Christy, certainly fits the description: Love and Communication is about a New Jersey couple raising an autistic boy and how the parents’ attempt to bridge the gap with him and others affect their own relationship. The subject is very close to home, as Christy and his wife are the parents of an 8-year-old who showed signs of autism when he was a toddler.
Much has been in the news about autism lately, especially since its dramatic rise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in December 2009 stating that the average case rate nationally was 9 in 1,000. That compares with 6 per 1,000 in the 1990s and 1 per 2,000 before the 1980s.What is the cause for this rise? Is it environmental or just better reporting techniques?
The jury is still out on the causes of autism, but that hasn’t stopped groups on many sides of the question from mounting the ramparts in defense of one preventive measure or another. Some groups, like SafeMinds, insist that vaccine-induced mercury or environmental toxins are the culprits. Others, including the CDC, find no such links. But this dispute matters less to parents of autistic kids. For them, that ship has already sailed. What they need is help coping with the world as it is now.
That’s where we find Rob and Megan Holden (Chris Stack and Julianna Zinkel), two well-educated, well-off, white, privileged parents of Sammy. They are exhausted and frustrated in trying to get constructive responses from him. What they need is a school that specializes in working with kids like Sammy. The program they have their sites set on is Turning Point, which focuses on "applied behavioral analysis." Its executive director, Julia (Lena Kaminsky), seems to work well with kids. But it’s expensive and it’s nearly impossible to get in.
On the other hand, there’s the allure of the less rigorous but more appealing goal-based therapy of Learning Architect Consultants. An avuncular Mr. Silverman (John Jezior) is peddling its benefits on the Internet. What’s a worthy goal for a beleaguered parent? "A hug," Silverman says, "You want him to give you a hug… Maybe you didn’t know it, but that’s why you’re here."
There are some mind-bending twists to the story. Rob’s method practically costs him his marriage (which is already under a strain). And Megan finds out that there’s less to Silverman than meets the eye (or the imagination), and she discovers the devious talents of an IC technician, Ephraim (hilariously played by Tom Saporito).
A subplot of the story involves Regina (Ahley B. Spearman), an official of the public school system, who discusses a study team’s observations of Sammy. Rob and Megan get into a dispute with her over whether Sammy qualifies as disabled enough to get the special treatment they want for him. Considerable extra costs would be born by the school system. As Regina points out, it would be at the expense of the poor students, whose parents are not wealthy and connected enough to afford a lawyer.
This opens up a controversial area that could propel another play all on its own, and it felt as if this aspect of the plot was left hanging after the subject was raised. A lot of heat is generated. Regina is keeping a lid on her anger and resentment at the unfairness of that imbalance. But as the Holdens point out, their own situation is hardly fair. Do they deserve to get special treatment for Sammy simply because they can work the system in their favor? Who are we to feel more compassion for?
It’s a complex tangle with no easy answers. This play doesn’t solve the question of what’s the best solution for families raising autistic children. It doesn’t deal with who’s got the answer to autism’s origins. It shows, with some humor and angst, the heartbreak of living with a very difficult condition, and how one particular couple maneuvers through it. The small cast, directed by Adam Immewahr, is all superb.
Love and Communication continues at the Mill Hill Playhouse, Front and Montgomery streets, Trenton, through Oct. 24. Performances: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $29-$30; 609-392-0766; www.passagetheatre.org
‘Circle Mirror Transformation’
D
AVID Saint, artistic director of the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, has an eye (and ear) for fresh talent. What struck him recently was the work of 29-year-old Annie Baker, whose Circle Mirror Transformation, her second play, premiered off-Broadway last fall and won an OBIE Award for Best New American Play.
To call it an actors’ play about the craft of acting is to slight its power as a piece of theater. It’s a purely engrossing and amusing hour and 40 minutes of entertainment that can rearrange your head. And in a sense, it’s a subtle lesson in attending a play – or rather, attending to a play.
On the spare set, which looks like an exercise room in a local YMCA, four amateurs are taking a six-week acting class. It’s a very basic level of instruction – not professional by any means. But it gets at the core of what theater is and, not incidentally, what life is too.
We see the students struggle, day-by-day, through a series of acting exercises conducted by their teacher, Marty (the incomparable Sandy Duncan). But what they’re really struggling with (and perhaps why they’ve signed up for this class) are life issues outside these walls. We learn about them only gradually as the students role-play. One exercise, familiar to anyone who’s taken an acting class, involves listening to someone’s capsule autobiography, then "becoming" that person, telling the class about "your" life.
Theresa (Amanda Sykes), 30-something, is still tender from the wounds of a failed, abusive relationship. She’s got no defenses against the slightest flattery from other men, like fellow classmate Schultz (Tom Riis Farrell), a portly 50-something divorcee who needs to redeem his manhood. Teenager Lauren (Sandie Rosa) wants a role in her high-school play, but she’s frustrated that the class isn’t getting around to "acting." There’s no script to work on or hone one’s skills.
At first it’s not clear why Marty would have her husband, James (Nick Wyman), in the class, too. But snippets of conversation give us glimpses of an off-stage drama involving their daughter and a transgression that is threatening the marriage. Could James be here in a desperate effort to salvage something that may be beyond repair? Remarkably, a few short exercises display the entire range of Marty and James’s relationship, from first infatuation to the precarious present.
Although there’s no pause in this production, no intermission, Baker has crafted the play so ingeniously that the audience is energized rather than fatigued. What are intermissions for but to give audiences a breather from an emotional buildup, or to give them a bathroom break? Although it’s relatively long for a one-act play, the time seems to fly.
That’s because scenes are short, sometimes only a couple of minutes long, with just enough dialogue and interaction to suggest a character’s back story or mood. Silence plays a major role as well.
At one end of the room is a rack filled with folding chairs, which are never opened. Only once are they even approached, when a character fusses with them aimlessly while he waits for a moment to make his move. An upright piano at the other end of the room is never played, but it twice punctuates the silence, once humorously and once in a moment of anger. Several panels of floor-length mirrors line the walls and all but one panel are shrouded behind blue drapes. A character desultorily faces that mirror, not consulting it directly, but sulking silently in front of it.
Like these props of potential, the action can veer in any direction. There are false starts, exercises that work, exercises that don’t and conversations that stumble. Characters fumble for a toehold, not only in the class as students, but in the lives they’re trying to sort out. Baker has a great ear for the hesitant dialogue of uncertainty.