Dramaworks pulls out all stops staging the World Premiere
of Lyle Kessler’s House on Fire, a
play destined for a sustained life in the theatre world. If Kessler’s name doesn’t spring to mind as
quickly as a Sam Shepard, David Mamet, or Edward Albee, American dramatists
with whom he has much in common, just wait.
He has several new works in development.
House on Fire is among his
most recent, and it builds in many ways on his highly acclaimed Orphans (1983) which is still being
performed throughout the world and was later made into a movie starring Albert
Finney. Another new play of his, Perp, will open in New York next March.
House on Fire’s
setting is Fishtown, a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia, with its
collection of row houses and bars, “on the edge of the Delaware River, home of
killers and robbers and four flushers.” The
element of gritty living hangs heavily in the play as does the legacy of great
family plays, with sons striving for acceptance by the father.
This is where the “Old Man” lives with his son, Dale, the
brother who still lives at home. Together,
they tend to a newsstand which garners a modest living. Dale is a loner who has been writing stories,
carefully depositing them in a safe in his room far from prying eyes. This is the repository of real value, words. Writing or “extrapolating” is Dale’s method of
survival.
He is the sensitive twin brother to the vagabond son,
Coleman, whose survival MO is flight. After
a ten year self-imposed absence, Coleman rushes home upon learning his father
has just died. He finds Dale standing by
his father’s body covered under a blanket on the couch. Already, things seem unreal, why wasn’t the
body moved for nearly two days?
Here the “fun” begins, Kessler revealing his gift for vivid,
jousting dialogue, expletives galore, particularly the black comedy which runs
throughout the play. The sons amusingly argue
back and forth as to whether the father is really dead. Dale, gullible, insists he is. Coleman claims it’s a ploy to get him back
home. We later learn the Old Man has sorrowfully
marked thousands of X’s on his bedroom wall, one for each day since Coleman
left home.
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Rob Donohoe, Hamish Allan-Headley, Taylor Anthony Miller
Photo by Samantha Mighdoll
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The itinerant Coleman has been followed by a one-armed misfit,
Noah, and his sister, Lane, both of whom he befriended while he was on the road,
Noah saying “We come across the Great Divide” (either literally from the West
Coast or figuratively crossing over from another life). Noah is the product of his own dysfunctional
family, a dominating mother who had but three words for her son: “Good for
nothing.” He becomes a petty thief, and
a protector of his sister, who has magical powers of hearing and feeling. Coleman, who they’ve renamed “Tokie” had been
“adopted” by the two of them, rescuing him from the gutter. All of them, sons and intruders alike, find
the Old Man to be the center of gravity in this metaphorical and mystical
universe of Fishtown.
Kessler walks a fine line between naturalism and absurdism,
embedding parables, Aesop's Fables, baseball metaphors, and a form of magical
realism into his play which is as funny as it is thought-provoking. Borrowing my own baseball metaphor, this is
not a play which is a fast ball down the middle. Much of the action dances unpredictably like
a knuckle ball, hard to hit unless one has patience and chokes up on the bat. If you wait out the pitch, there is a discernible
arc to the play. Five characters in
Fishtown attempt to become a real family, connecting them to the fish in a
mythical lake of Dale’s imagination, creatures not understanding a world beyond
the lake, and beyond that a “great mysterious universe.” Kessler zooms into each character with a
granular clarity and zooms out placing this theatre experience in a transcendental
perspective.
At the heart of Kessler’s writing is his characters’ need
to connect no matter what the underlying vicissitudes of their upbringing or
environment. Kessler underscores this
layer of reality by examining the fungibility of truth. The Old Man’s take on the subject says much
about his son’s struggles to find themselves: “People who proclaim the truth are speaking a
lie. A lie lurks under every truth. A lie is just sitting there biding its time
waiting to emerge triumphant. I'll take a Liar every time over a Truth Teller.” Is it no wonder they feel that the Old Man
sucked all the oxygen out of the room?
World premieres are a director’s and actor’s joy as well
as extraordinarily challenging, tasked with the responsibility to first interpret
the playwright’s intensions where none have gone before. Both William Hayes, the Director, along with
Kessler, started the auditioning process together, looking for actors who had
the right chemistry, ones who are quirky and can act with great heart. Check that objective off with this
production!
In spite of a number of physical confrontations in the
play, successfully orchestrated by the Fight Choreographer, Lee Soroko, for
authenticity and safety, Director Bill Hayes leans heavily towards the
interpretive light of hope for each character, for reconciliation of the family
itself and a reconstituted family. His
pacing of the play brings out the comedy, making the vulnerabilities of the
characters as apparent as their volatility.
Under Hayes’ expert direction, the play takes on a fully realized life
of its own.
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Rob Donohoe, Hamish Allan-Headley
Photo by Samantha Mighdoll
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The “Old Man” is mesmerizingly played by PBD veteran
actor, Rob Donohoe, who also played Dodge in the PBD production of Shepard’s Buried Child several seasons ago. The two characters couldn’t be more
different. Dodge was a wretched
alcoholic, and the Old Man is animated, opinionated, and even lovable at
times. It is a testimony to Rob
Donohoe’s acting abilities to portray the foul-mouthed Albanian newsstand owner
and long time Phillies fan so naturally, clearly finding his character’s
humanity, and in so doing making him larger than life. Donohoe’s interpretation is true to Noah’s description
of him, “he is a rugged individualist, maybe the last of the breed.” His
performance is a tour de force.
His sensitive son, Dale, is also a PBD veteran, Taylor
Anthony Miller, who has to balance his need to be heard while being the more
passive sibling. It is a difficult role
to play but Miller heartbreakingly captures the essence of a person whose very
existence is dependent on his imagination, his ability to “extrapolate” or write,
while secreting those writings in an actual safe. He must keep his writing ‘safe’ from exposure,
particularly from his father, whose criticism he has endured his entire life. Miller is deeply moving in allowing us to see
Dale’s scars, brightening up once when the Old Man compliments his imagination
by replying, “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me”.
Dale’s twin brother, Coleman (“Tokie”) is explosively
played by PBD newcomer, Hamish Allan-Headley, with an omnipresent level of anger
and cynicism. Allan-Headley modulates
this fury when he allows his guard down with his father, showing us his vulnerable
side. In spite of being a damaged soul,
he clearly loves his brother, uneasily bearing the guilt of having abandoned
him for ten years without a word of communication.
This is a man desperate to find his own identify and not
succeeding. Drifting and drinking to
black out has been his way of alleviating pain.
Allan-Headley captures the drunken Coleman so convincingly that you
could almost smell the alcohol on his breath.
He is tripped up by Lane, the girl he left behind who has followed him
with a secret of her own. This actor
keeps a tight rein on himself, totally convincing the audience that he has
returned home unwillingly, only to be forced to confront his own demons.
Christopher Kelly, a PBD newcomer, is the peripatetic,
menacing one-armed Noah, with a sinister disregard for the residents of this ramshackle
house, except when he feels praised by the Old Man. His sister’s welfare is always paramount as
well. Kelly spellbindingly captures his
character’s constant struggle to be accepted as a person of worth and to be
appreciated as a protector. His is an
impressive achievement, playing with one arm and mining Noah’s raw explosive emotions.
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Georgia Warner, Christopher Kelly Photo by Samantha
Mighdoll
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His chemistry with
another PBD newcomer, Georgia Warner, who plays his sister, is perceptible. Warner’s Lane is lyrical, mystical, and Warner
is intensely aware of Lane’s role as an oasis of kindness in a sea of damaged
men. Warner’s Lane has a big heart, 1960’s
hippie style. She channels life itself
and helps to bring this family together suggesting better times ahead.
The sharp personality difference between brother and
sister is beautifully captured in one of their exchanges, when Noah says that “Reality
is a sorry business” to which Lane ultimately replies “I prefer flights of
fancy.” Her performance adds just the
right leveling influence, a beautiful creature, yearning for love and
stability. She becomes the light that
draws all these damaged men to her.
In addition to a perfect cast for director Bill Hayes to
work with, he has an outstanding technical crew. Scenic design by Bill Clarke is reminiscent
of the home of the hoarding Collyer Brothers.
The past hangs heavily from every nook and cranny of the stage, old
magazines, baseball books, posters, baseball cards, bats, stuff shoved here and
there, including the soffits. It is the
external chaos of the inner life of the man who inhabits the house. It’s just a masterpiece of staging. The physical dimensions of Dramaworks’ wide
but shallow stage are a plus in depicting a row house. The furniture and other props have that
distressed look of severe neglect over the years.
The lighting also borrows from the physical layout with a
bank of lights stage right to depict the one-way light into the row house, and
to help define the different times of the day or night, one scene to the
next. Lighting designer Donald Edmund
Thomas supports the magical realism of the play with dirty lighting (as opposed
to clear lighting) and provides motivating lighting in sync with the character’s
emotional cues.
Brian O’Keefe’s costume designs ingeniously depict the
atmosphere of the play and each character’s personality. It is an amorphous time period, but dress
suggests anytime in the last couple decades.
Coleman and Noah’s apparel clearly reflect their knock about time on the
road while Dale’s is “working class casual.” O’Keefe has imagined and executed
the perfect outfits for the Old Man, the ubiquitous stained, off white undershirt
and beloved baseball jersey. Lane naturally stands out from the men, with her
fringed jeans, braided and beaded hair, billowy tops, reminiscent of the
ethereal flower child of the 60s.
Sound designer David Thomas brings in some of the ambient
outside sounds you’d hear on an urban street but these are unobtrusive and for
atmosphere. The music played at scene
changes are clearly to give the audience permission to smile, even inviting
tapping one’s toes, all mid century baseball music, some of which I’ve never
heard. Naturally, “Take Me Out to the
Ballgame” headlines these. Together with
lighting, these set the right tone for the show.
Kessler has something important to say about human nature,
the family, and the existential nature of existence itself – whether the “balls
and strikes” are being “adjudicated” by a “Deaf an' Dumb God.” House on Fire is the work of a playwright
of consequence and Dramaworks’ spirited and affecting production of its World
Premiere gives it wings.
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PS. News regarding this play was brought to my attention
on September 5, 2019 and I have the pleasure of adding it to this entry. HOUSE ON FIRE by Lyle Kessler will be
published by Samuel French, Inc. The
following credits will appear at the front of the publication:
“HOUSE ON FIRE was originally produced in West Palm
Beach, FL, by Palm Beach Dramaworks (Producing Artistic Director, William
Hayes; Managing Director, Sue Ellen Beryl), and opened on December 7,
2018. The production was directed by
William Hayes; with scenic design by Bill Clarke, costume design by Brian
O’Keefe, lighting design by Donald Edmund Thomas, and sound design by David
Thomas. The production stage manager
was Suzanne Clement Jones, and Lee Soroko was fight choreographer. The cast was as follows:
OLD MAN: Rob Donohoe
COLMAN: Hamish Allan-Headley
DALE: Taylor Anthony Miller
LANE: Georgia Warner
NOAH: Christopher Kelly
THE MOTHER’S VOICE: Margaret Ladd
· The play was originally submitted in
2017 to The Dramaworkshop at Palm Beach Dramaworks”
