All sad households of addicts are sad in their very own method. Until, in fact, you’re a stage household, overrun with “characters” who don’t a lot communicate as ship giggle traces and dispense nuggets of ethical knowledge. These households are typically all alike, whatever the superficial variations amongst them.
Grandparents play a bigger function than common in Jake Brasch’s “The Reservoir,” which opened Thursday on the Geffen Playhouse underneath the route of Shelley Butler. However the theater’s potential to show household dysfunction, be it alcoholism, Alzheimer’s or simply garden-variety existential agony, into leisure and prompt illumination, has lengthy been a staple of the American stage.
My tolerance for the artificiality of the style could also be decrease than most theatergoers. Some take consolation in hoary comedian patterns, souped-up eccentricity and reassuring pieties. Overexposed to this species of drama, I hunch in my seat.
Certainly, my endurance was as skinny for “The Reservoir” because it was for “Cult of Love,” Leslye Headland’s drama a couple of household breakdown through the holidays that made it to Broadway final season after its 2018 premiere at L.A.’s IAMA Theatre. Neither play is past pandering to its viewers for a straightforward giggle.
Serving as protagonist and narrator, Josh (Jake Horowitz), the queer Jewish theater pupil on medical depart from NYU who wakes up one morning after an alcoholic bender at a reservoir in his hometown of Denver, reveals the snappy, manic banter of a drunk not capable of resist his drawback. Patricia (Marin Hinkle), his long-suffering mom, has had it with Josh’s relapses, however how can she flip away her son who lies bleeding on her sofa?
Together with his mom’s assist, Josh will get a job as a clerk at a bookstore as he tries as soon as once more to drag his life collectively. Thankfully, Hugo (Adrián González), his supervisor, is fast to miss his lax efficiency. Apparently, consuming has so scrambled Josh’s mind that alphabetizing books takes each ounce of his power.
Marin Hinkle, left, Lee Wilkof, Jake Horowitz, Geoffrey Wade and Liz Larsen in “The Reservoir.”
(Jeff Lorch)
I didn’t fairly really feel as indulgent towards Josh, however not as a result of I didn’t sympathize together with his struggles. My beef was that he gave the impression of an anxious playwright decided to string an viewers alongside with out pressured exuberance and sitcom-level repartee. (Examine, say, one in every of Josh’s rants with these of a personality in a Terrence McNally, Richard Greenberg or Jon Robin Baitz comedy, and the drop off in verbal acuity and unique wit will change into crystal clear.)
What provides “The Reservoir” a declare to uniqueness is the way in which Josh’s 4 grandparents are conscripted not simply into the story however into the staging. Seated in a row onstage, they function refrain to their grandson’s travails, chiming in with their very own opinions and appearing out his description of the way in which his ideas compulsively take over his thoughts, like an unstoppable prepare or a raging river.
Every additionally has a person function to play in Josh’s restoration. Patricia’s mom, Irene (Carolyn Mignini), for instance, has been reworked by dementia since Josh has seen her final. She’s at all times been his favourite grandparent. He fondly remembers baking cookies, taking part in Uno and singing alongside to “The Sound of Music” along with her. Even when she pulled away after he got here out in highschool, his affection has remained steadfast.
He want to join along with her once more and fears he has misplaced his probability. On the bookstore, he reads up on Alzheimer’s illness and hatches a plan to construct up the cognitive reserve of all his grandparents by feeding them spinach and preserving them mentally engaged. He’s attempting, in impact, to save lots of himself by saving them, however they’re too feisty to be corralled by their unstable grandson.
Irene’s fiercely protecting husband, Hank (Geoffrey Wade), an arch spiritual conservative, is just too grumpy. As for Josh’s paternal Jewish grandparents, Shrimpy (Lee Wilkof) is an excessive amount of of a sensible joker with intercourse on his thoughts. And Beverly (Liz Larsen), {an electrical} engineer who doesn’t mince phrases, is just too gimlet-eyed to not see that Josh is specializing in his grandparents to keep away from doing the arduous work of restoration.
Having been sober for a lot of a long time herself, Bev acknowledges the narcissism of habit, the way in which addicts tend to place themselves on the middle of the universe. She provides Josh the powerful love that he wants, forcing him to see {that a} grandparent isn’t only a grandparent however a human being with an advanced historical past that needn’t be worn like a Kleenex seen from underneath a sleeve.
Josh units out to be a savior however finally ends up getting an training within the actuality of different individuals. Brasch’s intentions are noble, however “The Reservoir” doesn’t plunge all that deep. The play attracts out the distinctiveness of the grandparents by ratcheting up their zingy eccentricities. How simply these characters fall right into a punch-line rhythm. Larsen has essentially the most consequential function and she or he imparts simply the appropriate notice of astringency. However the staginess of the writing makes it tough for any of the actors to transcend the shtick that’s been assigned to them.
Hinkle brings a depth of realism to her portrayal of Patricia, however the character isn’t absolutely developed. Complete dimensions of Patricia’s life are veiled to us. Each Hinkle and Gonazález gamely play different characters, however these sketched presences compound the final impression of a comic book world drawn with out a lot nuance.
The staging is frolicsome however visually monotonous — an issue for a play that’s for much longer than it must be. Greater than two hours of trying on the fey-preppy outfit costume designer Sara Ryung Clement ready for Horowitz’s Josh turns into a sort of style purgatory for viewers and protagonist alike.
I’m unsure why a manufacturing that doesn’t take a literal strategy to settings has to repeatedly trot out the entrance seat of a automobile. The spry help of stagehands, who not solely transfer set items however assist flesh out the world of the play, is a jaunty contact. However the sound and lighting results get slightly heavy-handed throughout Josh’s hallucinatory meltdowns. Blame for the inexcusably clunky dream scenes, a writing fail, can’t be pinned on the designers.
Horowitz had the Geffen Playhouse’s opening-night viewers within the palm of his hand, however I heard an actor taking part in his comedian traces greater than his character. Horowitz, nevertheless, is barely following the route of a playwright, who has a harrowing story to inform and wishes you to get pleasure from each tricked-up minute of the zany-schmaltzy telling.
‘The Reservoir’
The place: Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood
When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 3 and eight p.m. Saturdays, 2 and seven p.m. Sundays. Ends July 20
Tickets: $45 – $139 (topic to vary)
Contact: (310) 208-2028 or www.geffenplayhouse.org
Working time: 2 hours, quarter-hour (one intermission)
