June 2010 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
Inherit the Whole
Chicago theatres never seem to tire of the dysfunctional family drama genre. They're the benchmark on which companies like Steppenwolf have made their name and calling cards, and every new season new troupes line up to stake their claim on this familiar terrain. Dana Lynn Formby's "Inherit the Whole," which is currently inaugurating Mortar Theatre Company's season of original World Premieres at the Athenaeum Theatre, is about five members of a family who have staked their claims to an inheritance that may or may not exist. It brings to mind Langston Hughes' eloquent poem "What happens to a dream deferred?" In "Inherit the Whole," these dreams all seem to lead to despair. They do indeed fester and implode.
The patriarch of this nameless clan was a Colorado moonshiner who supposedly stashed up gold under the floor boards of his mountain cabin before turning a gun to his own head. The man left no written will, which means by law that his property and earthly belongings will be divided into equal thirds by his three grown sons. The eldest, Paul (Christopher Jon Martin) is a recovering alcoholic and an idle dreamer. The middle son Doug (Derek Garza) is a deranged Vietnam War veteran who appears destined to follow in his father's filthy, useless lifestyle. The youngest, Jake (Jon Penick) is cold and introverted.
Doug initially greets Paul and his wife Lisa (Stephanie Stroud) in his underwear with a shotgun. They have arrived on a mission to help scatter the old man's ashes and to urge Doug to clean up his life and his pig sty of a cabin. Doug protests; it's his home and he will live as he wants. The devoutly religious Lisa argues that all the filth and cockroaches and piles of newspaper and beer cans just aren't Christian. "Do you even know what that means?" Doug challenges her.
We see the volatile Paul teetering on the edge of abuse, although Lisa claims he hasn't struck her since he gave up the bottle. Doug wonders why then she is wearing long sleeves in the middle of August. Lisa feels it is her biblical duty to be a faithful "help meet" to her man with the "big, beautiful imagination". Those skeletons keep poking out of the family closet as we hear of similar bouts of anger and violence. Lisa wonders "Can you get enough distance for the memories to stop?" Jake steadfastly believes that family doesn't turn on family. "We've been through shit but we look out for one another". But for all his "family values," Jake's marriage Kaiann (Sara Tode) threatens to unravel as she can't stop feeling and he can't start feeling.
Paul feels they all deserve some recompense and believes they can find it beneath the floorboards of the family's cabin. Doug believes that "hope is a terrible thing; it can destroy you." Paul has a purpose and a vision of being one of the doers in the world. "If you don't take action there is no outcome," he says. Dismantle the home though and Doug will be left with nothing. "A fifth of nothing is nothing," Lisa realizes. Is that elusive pot of gold really at the end of a rainbow or buried five feet below dirt? Can monetary gain ever fully fix what's wrong with these people's tormented lives?
There are some intense fireworks on display here that run the gamut from Paul's poignant childhood memory of a Monarch butterfly to the fever-pitched emotion of hysterical screaming and profanity. Those who enjoy thought-provoking, albeit depressing drama will be in heaven here. The distressed clutter of Eric Broadwater's rustic, hyper realistic set is an apt metaphor for the characters' emotional, mental and psychological conditions.
The pot of gold metaphor here is a bit obvious and predictable, and the cast often unravels into those shouting matches simply for the sake of, well, SHOUTING! Director Jason Boat keeps them all on a steady boil that spews over like a volcano. Formby's play does raise some interesting points even as it recycles a much overdone formula of familial melodrama.
Mortar Theatre presents the World Premiere of "Inherit the Whole" through June 27, 2010 at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport in Chicago. The play runs 2 hours with intermission. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Regular tickets are $20, with discounts for seniors, students, veterans and groups of 10 or more. Mortar continues its inaugural season with "Under America" by Jacob Juntunen, September 3-26 at the Athenaeum Theatre. For tickets and information, visit www.mortartheatrecompany.org.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for
the past twenty-five years. He served as founder, producer and
Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland
and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions
have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap,"
"The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker,"
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie
Brown" and "Godspell". He has also performed
leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin,"
"The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and
most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for
Waukegan Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial
Art from Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has
reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major
regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey,
Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in
Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).