By Chuck Graham
www.tucsonstage.com
The characters spring to life in Beowulf Alley Theatre Company's intense presentation of David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize winning "Rabbit Hole." So real are the portrayals in this super-naturalistic family drama, you'll be wanting to jump onstage to calm down your favorite, assuring that person everything will be all right...eventually.
Izzy (Kristina Sloan) is my personal favorite. As an actress, Sloan catches all the nuance in one young woman's bravado juggling her own insecurities while dancing as fast as she can. It's a fascinating stage accomplishment for someone so young.
The central figure in this story of repressed heartbeat is Becca (Nell Summers), a wife in a less-than-satisfying marriage whose four-year-old son died in a tragic accident several months before the play begins. With no place to turn for genuine solace in her own family, Becca is trying to manage her grief by moving on, but doing so gently with feelings.
Izzy isn't helping any. As Becca's younger sister, Izzy is reluctant to give up her natural place as the family's energetic center of attention. So Izzy takes considerable pleasure in announcing she has become pregnant without the benefit of marriage, or even a serious boyfriend. She will raise this child by herself, providing everyone with copious details by the hour.
This emerging new life in Izzy's body represents the future, for sure, but what is Becca to do to find her own closure even as Izzy keeps wanting to rush the family forward even faster. Becca's future lies in how effectively she deals with the past.
That path is blocked by Becca's husband Howie (Gabriel Nagy), a broad-shouldered man's man uncomfortable with the subtleties of tenderness. Rather than face any part of the future, Howie wants to hole up in his memories.
Nourishing this reverence with more sorrow, Howie hangs on to every remnant of his little son's brief life. It is a safe place, albeit a sad one, but preferable to the vaguely shaped future where Howie and Becca will almost certainly have to decide if their now-childless marriage is worth preserving.
Hovering over this clanging jukebox of emotions is Becca's nit-picking mother Nat (Martie van der Voort). She sees Becca's inability to sort out her personal tragedies as proof of Nat's own failure as a mother. Perhaps she fears it is true the shortcomings of the parents are passed on to their children.
At least...that is my interpretation of this fascinating play whose balance points within a domestic setting reflect the complexities of every modern family's struggle for survival.
In these days of fragmented household responsibilities, who will provide the lifelines when there is big trouble? Who will speak the words of reason when everyone who should be trustworthy is even more stressed out? Where are the extended families that once provided the stability to weather difficult times?
Sure there is more freedom without the anchor of grandparents, without the compromises of marriage and the skirmishes of siblings. But what if Kris Kristofferson is right, what if freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose?
The price of security is different for each of us. Sara Falconer has done her part as director by drawing excellent work from each of these actors, balancing the personalities of the characters and setting their pace. Beneath the noisy conflicts of their arguments in the living room there is genuine insight wanting to get out.
Performances continue at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave., at 7:30 p.m.Thursdays-Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays, to Nov. 22. Tickets are $20. For details and reservations, 882-0555, or receive an online line ticket discount of $2 at www.beowulfalley.org
