Appropriate - Theater

Seen 9/17/2017

Appropriate as in apt for the situation or Appropriate as in tale for oneself, which is the best interpretation of the name of this play or is it both?   Let’s put it this way, over the course of the play most of the characters behave in ways that are not appropriate because they want to appropriate someone or something for themselves.    The cast is uniformly excellent.  Dee Covington as Toni, the oldest of three siblings blows the roof of the theater creating a woman so filled with rage, resentment and pain that she becomes toxic.    She like the her siblings Bo, played by Eric Sandvold, and Frank, played by Sean Scrutchins, are all very trapped by ghosts of their pasts as represented physically by the wreck of their recently deceased fathers house.   They ostensibly come together to sort through their father’s belongings and auction of the house.    Artifacts are discovered that reveal secrets about their father.   Toni’s reaction is total denial.  She simply can’t believe anything that would tarnish the memory of her father, the last person who loved and held her.   Sean has no problem believing it.  For him, the revelations are all too real.  As the much younger sibling he was left to live alone with his father and feels that it is his father’s issues that drove him to drink and drugs and made him the messed up soul he is.  Sean has come back to try to make amends with his siblings as part of his recovery program.  Before this he had disappeared for ten years and even go so far as to change his name to become a new, better person.   In his own words, he wants to fix something.   Sean Scrutchins paints a portrait of someone wrestling with his past self and trying to be someone better.   This Between the two of them stands Bo, who just wants to be financially solvent and sees the selling of the house as they way to achieve that.  He does not want to believe the revelations about his father but cannot really dismiss them either but he too harbors fears and resentments that bubble just below the seemingly placid surface.   Eric Sandvold plays the peacemaker more than capable of exploding if driven to it.

Around these siblings are various family members.  Toni has her son Rhys who is clearly uncomfortable with his mother’s desire for more intimacy than he would like.   He simply wants to get through the weekend and then move into his father’s house.    Bo has his wife, Rachel and two children along.  Rachel is Jewish and all about protecting her children from her father-in-laws racist past.   Mare Trevathan gives her just enough edge, compassion, and anger to make you feel Rachel’s desperation to whatever is need to deal with the house and get out to not only protect her children but saver her husband.   Audrey Graves as Bo’s Daughter provides a combination of nerdy scientist and young teenager wanting to be an adult.   She is both bratty and clinical.   Frank/Franz has a fiancé, River.  River is a spiritualist and a child of the earth.   Rhianna DeVries brings the warm earthiness you would expect from such a character.