A crappy duplex basement apartment in Chinatown with a curious lightbulb situation. Ninety minutes of almost every possible human trial and tribulation (seriously so many – check it out – I made a list below) packed into one Thanksgiving dinner served on paper plates. A family of four glued together with the power of unconditional love. I give you: The Humans.
I was asked at dinner to give my rating on a scale of 1 to 10 and stand by my response of 7/8. The dialogue was clever, far reaching, and ambitious. Reed Birney, as the father, has mastered the art of the lost and vacant stare. Jayne Houdyshell, the mom, could deliver a line and you could feel her pain as her life quietly chipped away at her thick and practical skin. Some of my dining partners did not agree with my assessment, one fellow going as low as -2.5 – that’s negative 2.5. This resulted in some entertaining and spirited debate on the merits or lack thereof of the play – which made for fine post show dinner banter (perhaps my favorite part of the evening). But one non-fan of the show did have something along the lines of this to say: “I would rather have been there and not liked it then to not have seen it at all.” So maybe, just maybe, he will be back with us in the fall. 🙂
In closing a trials and tribulation recap of just some of what was tackled on stage: religion, mother/daughter tension, depression, 9/11 fallout, eating issues, an affair, middle age angst, lesbian breakups, insomnia, social stratification, career anxiety, layoffs, dementia, colitis, strange dreams, juicing, weight watchers, marriage, and tunnel symbolism. Okay they left out politics and I am sure to have missed some but you get the gist. Humans being human.
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