November 30, 2018
Theresa Rebeck has entered Pinter-land, just a liiiitle bit, with her latest play (or
anyway, the latest to open in New York, off-Broadway, on the heels of Bernhardt/Hamlet), called, simply Downstairs. Taking place in an unspecified, probably suburban neighborhood, it
almost tells the story of an older middle aged housewife, Irene (Tyne Daly) and her slightly
younger (at least as cast) brother Teddy (real-life younger brother Tim Daly). It may or may not
be fair to call him a slacker; what’s true is, he’s lost, down on his luck,
homeless and needful of a place to stay. So he stays in the unfinished basement
of her house, which has the artifacts of the workroom it perhaps once was,
along with a comfortable couch and a bathroom off the main area. He says he’s
working on something big and just needs a little time for it to fully develop.
She’s more willing to have his stay be open-ended than not, but her at-least mentally
abusive husband, Gerry (the always compelling John Proccacino),
who will descend much later in the play, is not-as-patiently putting the
pressure on. That’s pretty much all we know for sure. Which is why I say the
play almost tells the story.
My
friend and colleague, playwright Jeffrey Sweet, talks about scenes that employ low context writing—in which every
relationship is spelled out with specific labels, such that the audience
needn’t engage with the material to understand what’s going on—and high context writing—in which
interpersonal dynamics and references that make the specifics implicit bring the audience
closer in, as their own intuition fills in the spaces, thus tacitly making them
part of the storytelling process. Well, with Downstairs, Ms.
Rebeck employs what I will call super context: dynamics
and references that allow for several legitimate interpretations. And maybe a
few wild ones, but none that can be cleanly contradicted by the text.
Unlike
Pinter, Ms. Rebeck keeps characterization and emotional realities pretty clear.
But whether the brother is mad, the sister just manic depressive, whether the
husband just a garden variety bully or far worse…and to some small but
tantalizingly debatable degree, who delivers the plot turns and how…much of
that is left for you to assume or even interpret. And I think that’s what she’s
after, too. Rather like those Choose Your Own Destiny books,
but far subtler and more insinuating, in Downstairs, multiple
narratives are true.
Of
course, the real-life relationship between the Daly siblings adds a very unambiguous
sweetness to their interplay (I am not the only person, nor only at the performance
I attended, to have “caught” Ms. Daly calling the brother character Timmy
every once in a while, instead of Teddy); and it’s all a bit of odd,
quirky…I guess fun is the word, under the nicely tense, unobtrusive
direction of Adrienne Campbell-Holt.
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