248.
THE OPEN HOUSE
Will
Eno’s THE OPEN HOUSE, at the Signature’s Linney Theatre, is a fascinating,
funny, but decidedly offbeat family drama set in the “family room” of a generic
suburban house (nicely realized by Antje Ellermann), where we meet a father
(Peter Friedman), sitting at stage right in a wheelchair, with a blanket over
his knees, because of a recent stroke; his wife (Carolyn McCormick), seated on
stage left in an easy chair, doing a small jigsaw puzzle; their grown children,
(Danny McCarthy and Hannah Bos), placed on the couch separating their parents;
and the father’s brother (Michael Countryman), standing upstage of the couch. (None
of the characters in the play is given a name in the program.) They remain in
these positions for a considerable time with little movement as they make small
talk on the occasion of the parents’ anniversary.
From left: Peter Friedman, Danny McCarthy, Michael Countryman, Hannah Bos, Carolyn McCormick. Photo: Joan Marcus.
The brother, who’s been in
rehab, is a hapless sort, who has little to say and whose every remark is
greeted with dryly cutting sarcasm by the father. In fact, nearly everything anyone
says is followed with a snarky crack by this bitterly sardonic invalid,
although no one loudly objects to or argues with his nastiness, taking it in
stride, more or less, as if used to a lifetime as his verbal punching bags. The
daughter wants to know why the family can’t be more like other families, but her
attempt to ask even that question is deflated by the her father’s snotty
reactions. The mother, too, is given to disconcertingly off kilter discourse,
as when the daughter asks, “Does anyone want anything? Coffee or anything?” and
the mother answers, “I should be offering you
a cup of coffee,” although making no move to do so. When the daughter
responds, “So is there some? . . . Is there any already made?” the mother
replies, “Your father and I stopped drinking it.” Adding to the tone of dysfunctional
familial alienation is the absence of the family dog, who has run away (as who
wouldn’t in this atmosphere?). Still, for all their lack of communication, the
family remains implacably stuck with one another, as if that’s a given of their
existence, even if they’d prefer to be someplace else.
Gradually, each of the characters,
except for the father, has to leave for one reason or another, beginning with
the daughter going off to get lunch, followed by the mother’s exit when she
learns that the daughter had an accident. Soon the house is visited by other
characters, the first one being a real estate agent (Ms. Bos) there to prepare the
house for sale. The father has secretly arranged for this to be the day of the
open house. The agent goes about her business efficiently and with good cheer,
taking barely any notice of his behavioral oddities, and before long the house
is filled with other people of good cheer, all of them involved one way or the
other in the sale or purchase of the house: a landscaper-house painter (Mr.
McCarthy), a married couple (Mr. Countryman and Ms. McCormick) interested in
buying the house, and, after the father, who has taken ill, departs by
ambulance, a lawyer (Mr. Friedman). Each of these characters is played by the
same actors who appeared in the play’s first half, but with quite different
personal characteristics, which mildly disorients the father. They all get
along nicely and, as they gather in the family room to talk about the house,
they seem much more like a happy family than the suffering group we saw at
first. As for the dog . . .
We see the original family’s
presence vanishing as new people prepare to take over the house, possibly to
bring happiness to a place that has been corroded by unexplained tensions. The
characters are real, yet not real. They speak in everyday vernacular, but there's something wryly off about them, as if they live in some parallel universe.
Everyone is recognizable but the very fact of their not being given names (or
any other identifying labels) suggests their essentialness, as if we all know
people like them but not quite as unresponsive or weird in how they respond. The
second group of characters acts in more recognizably reactive ways than the
first, but they too are so preoccupied with their immediate concerns that their
behavior seems slightly disconnected from reality.
THE OPEN HOUSE is rife with witty,
occasionally absurdist dialogue, spoken in conversational tones by the superb ensemble in
a low-key, dry, and completely convincing manner, with Mr. Friedman’s irascible
father being especially noteworthy. After seeing so much scenery chewing in recent productions, watching actors behaving rather than showing off was like applying salve to a sunburn. (Sadly, NO EXIT, a night later, scrubbed off all the ointment.) Under Oliver Butler’s perfectly calibrated
direction, there's no shouting or playing to the rafters, and the subtle variations
within each character are limned with honesty and quirky humor.
If it were any longer THE OPEN HOUSE would
quickly wear out its welcome, but the 80-minute running time is just right for Mr. Eno to
set up and develop his situations. In a sense, with its generic environment and
characters, it’s like an extended sketch, but it maintains a strong enough
sense of something happening to keep it from floating away. Mr. Eno's
take on family life is a bit disconcerting, but it’s also oddly diverting. I’m
glad I was able to walk in the door and check out his house.
