Theater Review—

‘This’ Is Really Something On A Number Of Levels

By Julie Stern

HARTFORD — We thought we knew what to expect from life, and instead we ended up with This.

Hartford’s TheaterWorks is staging a wonderful production of Melissa James Gibson’s play — a work that is by turns funny, moving, and thought-provoking, fast paced, with inspired dialogue and fine acting. It is also totally accessible to anyone who has ever been near the edges of mid-life second-guessing about what you want, what you need, and the rules you intend to live by.

Tom, Marrell, Jane and Alan have been best friends since college. Now 38, they have gotten together for an evening of food, wine and conversation. They are laughing and wisecracking but beneath it all is an undercurrent of sadness and stress.

Tom and Marrell, now a long married couple, are exhausted from the demands of their first baby, Henry, who sleeps only in 15-minute intervals. The stress provokes mean little resentful digs at one another.

Unlike the others, who were students at their prestigious ivy college, Tom worked as a maintenance man and groundskeeper, educating himself in the college library, and planning a career as a craftsman. Marrell, who supports them by working as a café singer-piano player, complains in front of their guests about his unfinished projects, and his shortcomings as a househusband, because the filter hasn’t been changed on the Britta pitcher.

“I’m a tap water man myself,” Tom remarks, in an icy reference to his coming from a lower social class than the others.

Alan, a sardonic, bearded gnome, mocks himself disparagingly, while scrounging the kitchen for food and booze. As the unattached gay pal, he could become a stereotype, but in Gibson’s hands, he reveals layers of substance, blighted hopes, and the pain of a real psychological condition whereby he makes his living as a stunt-performer: a totally retentive memory, that has him recall and relive every conversation and event of his life, whether he wants to or not. This enables him to play the part of an implacable Tiresias, telling the truth about what was said, when the others rewrite their words to make them more palatable.

The action is triggered when Tom and Marrell pressure Jane, a poet and teacher, into a silly party game where she is supposed to guess the details of a story the others made up while she was out of the room. In fact the “game” is an elaborate practical joke. There was no story. The group arbitrarily answer her questions with yes or no, depending solely on whether the question ended in a vowel or a consonant. This makes for some comic moments, as the others try to remember which is which, but it turns darkly and uncomfortably personal, when the story seems to involve a thirty-eight year old woman whose husband is dead, and who is attracted to her best friend’s husband…

Jane is in fact a widow, whose husband died a year ago, leaving her with a nine-year-old daughter to raise alone. Marrell has arranged this get-together to fix her up with Jean-Pierre, a handsome, dashing French physician who works for Doctors Without Borders. It’s a desperately awkward situation, and Jane flees the apartment, to the consternation of the others.

In the wake of this debacle, Tom shows up at Jane’s apartment ostensibly to apologize, but it leads to an impulsive sexual encounter that leaves them both wracked with shame and guilt. Tom wants to keep what happened a secret. Jane is haunted by a need to confess.

Above all, the play explores the nature of relationships: How well do we really know each other? What happened to the people we used to be? Do the words we speak reflect what we really mean? Did we intend to do the things we do? Is This all there is? And where does Death fit into the scheme of our lives?

As the outsider to the group, Jean- Pierre remains distant from the angst of the others. Waving a manila folder containing the agenda for a conference on suffering children in Africa, he chides them by saying This is terrible. Compared to the atrocities he sees in his work, the concerns of these Americans are — borrowing a word he learned from Alan — Dinky. But to the bright, sophisticated thirty-somethings trying to make sense of their lives, personal betrayal is devastating.

Director Amy Saltz gets bravura performances from all her actors, but especially from Beth Wittig, as Jane, droll, scatter-brained, disorganized and beautiful, whose need to come to terms with her grief lies at the heart of the play. In what begins as an almost farcical scene involving her husband’s ashes, she is suddenly transformed into utter and harrowing torment, howling in pain as she realizes what she is holding, and what that means.

Tijuana T Ricks is also very strong as Marrell, who lashes out with words that hide the tenderness and vulnerability underneath.  Andrew Rein gives unexpected jolts to the character of insufferable Alan, who babysits Jane’s daughter, and holds her hand when she is in despair.

Maxime De Toledo is positively hot as the Frenchman , who is charming without ever being involved, and Clark Carmichael is by turns sulky and importunate as Tom.

The play is about thirty-somethings, but regardless of your age, this is theater well worth going to see, with truths that transcend generation. It continues only until February 27. Don’t miss it.