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Theater: Buried child
RVP pulls a 'Rabbit' out of its hat with Lindsay-Abaire tragedy

by Lee Brady

The Ross Valley Player's production of David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole may come as a surprise to audiences who recently saw his riotous farce Fuddy Meers at Marin Theatre Company. The situation and characters here are as serious as it gets. Becca (Beth Kellerman) and Howie (Gregg LeBlanc) grieve for their 4-year-old son who has been killed in a car accident. There are still traces of humor—Lindsay-Abaire can't help writing sharp one-liners—as he brings in Becca's sister, Izzy (Floriana Alessandria), to liven things up. Izzy is like a Jerry Springer character with her drinking stories and bar fights. Their mother, Nat (Maureen O'Donoghue), natters on about the Kennedys as if they lived next door. These two furnish the needed comic relief as Becca and Howie find their own way to move through the tragedy without breaking up their marriage.

Howie finds the grief support group helpful, but Becca doesn't. He likes watching videos of their son, but she strips photos of him from the wall. They can't come together; when he wants to make love, saying, "I just want things to be nice," she reminds him that "things aren't nice, and they never will be."

Kellerman is so tightly wound as Becca that we know she is going to break. She does, but not before she befriends the 17-year-old boy who drove the car that hit her son. LeBlanc's Howie is accommodating to everyone but himself, and in time he breaks as well. It works as catharsis for the characters and is satisfying for the audience.

Mary Ann Rodgers, on a set that has a working kitchen (Ken Rowland's design), directs the poignant scenes with sensitivity, but allows the family arguments to rise to raucous levels and thereby become comic.

If you saw the movie, you missed the play, which is about a whole family, not just Nicole Kidman. If you've seen the play, see it again at Ross Valley where a sterling cast will take you through a dramatic, and thoughtful, evening.

• • • •

It's 1991 and Cuba's greatest support, the Soviet Union, is collapsing. Change is coming fast, but not fast enough for sisters Maria (Dawn Scott) and Sofia (Jeanette Harrison), who are under house arrest by Cuban authorities. Two Sisters and a Piano, written by playwright Nilo Cruz and given life in Marin by AlterTheater, gives us the tensions of their day-to-day life as Sofia plays the grand piano and Maria writes letters to her husband, a political exile in Sweden. Their letters to each other are confiscated by the government. When army officer Victor Manuel (Matt Jones) visits on an inspection tour, he offers to trade the letters for love, and the drama takes off.

As with other AlterTheater productions, the play is being performed in a storefront, and director Ann Brebner doesn't always succeed in creating the claustrophobic atmosphere necessary for this drama. At times the audience seems to be watching a tennis match as characters play out simultaneous scenes on either side of the long and empty space without walls.

The acting, as always at AlterTheater, is first rate, with Scott as Maria carrying the strongest emotional moments. Harrison's Sofia is a flighty young woman who just wants to have fun. Armando Rey comes on strong, but his character disappears early on. Jones, a military man torn between love and duty, is sympathetic as he is forced into a dramatic choice.

Nilo Cruz did not win a Pulitzer Prize for this play (he won for 2003's Anna in the Tropics), and one can see why. The situation feels like a set-up and doesn't work through to a satisfying conclusion. It leaves interesting and appealing characters out on the political limb that was Cuba in 1991.

NOW PLAYING

Rabbit Hole runs through June 12 at the Ross Valley Players' Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center, Ross; 415/456-9555, www.rossvalleyplayers.com .

Two Sisters and a Piano runs through May 29 at AlterTheater, performing at 888 Fourth St., San Rafael; 415 454-2787, www.altertheater.org .

Talk local theater with Lee at freshleebrady@gmail.com.