“You’re not in a better place than me, just a different one.” An entire play is summed up in that one line, and when Susan Marie Rhea utters it you can feel all the carefully set pieces beginning to fall into place.
Director Kerri Rambow has managed one of the most difficult feats in theatre: giving us a family that sounds like a family. It helps that the set, designed by 4Points Design Collective and fleshed out by Carol H. Baker, feels like a real home. Linda High [Nat] stands out for her contributions to the sense that these characters have known each other for years, both by picking at old wounds and by showing that special kind of patience that parents have when they wait for their children to realize that parents have feelings too.
As Becca, Susan Marie Rhea is the anchor that holds the production together. The entirety of the drama plays out in her face, and it can be tempting to watch her reactions rather than whichever character is speaking at the time…It would be easy for the part to be played as melodramatic or maudlin, but Rhea’s clear frustration at all the well-meaning but useless advice makes her sympathetic to, well, just about anyone who’s ever had their friends and family attempt to weigh in on their troubles.
