Beekin redefines family dysfunction

Author: Myra Palmero

Everett Beekin, which ran last weekend at Seeler Studio Theater under the direction of Professor of Theatre Douglas Sprigg, explored the powerful, complicated relationship that connects four generations of a dysfunctional Jewish family: the Foxs. While Sprigg's production used the flair of Fran Drescher accents, gimicky humor and an overriding ocean symbol to create a quirky playfulness, as audience members ushered out of the auditorium, the play's final tone seemed ambivalent.

With one set of characters playing four generations, Everett Beekin runs the gamut of subplots. Act one takes place in 1947 Manhattan, while act two finds the characters in 1990s Orange County, Calif. Involving three generations of Everett Beekins, and double casting actors Lauren Kiel '07 and Caitlin Dennis '06.5 who play two different sets of sisters from the same family, the play reveals that history repeats itself and whether we like it or not, we too are bound to repeat the past.

But, after watching nearly 2 hours of the Fox family's relentless and exhausting verbal tennis match, it is easy to see why one would attempt to run away from history. Act one bursts with color of Judith Dry's '09 eccentric portrayal of Ma, and Evan DuMouchel's '06.5 show-stealing hilarity as man-of-few-words Jack. Kiel and Dennis play the Fox sisters, Sophie and Nell, whose grating attacks on each other leave little room for vulnerability. This makes it difficult to side with Kiel, the protagonist who so often takes a defensive approach.

The constant rhythm of the family's dry sarcasm, however, made the few moments of quiet and sisterly laughter over the dramatic antics of their younger sister Miri (Lily Weckler '09) more poignant - underneath the surface of familial exasperation lay an ineffable love. Willie Orbison's '08 earnestness as bright-eyed Jimmy, Miri's non-Jewish suitor, was a breath of fresh air in the Fox family's pessimism. Jimmy's entrance forces Dennis and Kiel to magically play up their sisterly bond, evidenced in a hilarious combination of pyhsically mimicking each other's body language while verbally opposing eachother's words.

Sprigg's production takes a realistic approach to the Jewish Manhattan tenement until the end of the scene. Suddenly, the sound of the Pacific Ocean plays in the background and a blue light spots a dying Weckler who hobbles onstage for the first time, claiming dramatically that she just had a cold. While the moment was chilling, the sounds of the ocean were out of place among the apartment's sofas and rugs. In addition, Weckler's ghostlike apparition, complete with a translucent nightgown, pale face and severe bed-head-hair, made her look like she had walked out from another world. Weckler's dying appearance was emphasized so clearly that the family, who continued to brush her sickness aside as a cold, looked blind, and Weckler seemed a drama queen.

That said, in juxtaposition to the far-fetched ocean moment, the actor's naturalistic goodbyes, vague and disinterested, were surprisingly heart-breaking. In the final moments of the act, Dry cried alone onstage until she gave a last exasperated "shah," all at once sentimentalizing the past and moving forward toward the future.

While act one sets the background for the Fox family's history, act two shows the future generations searching for their roots. The set, designed by Associate Technical Director Hallie Zieselman, reflected this movement from past to future. In act one, the atmosphere of familial claustrophobia, shown through dark rugs, furniture and oversized, empty picture frames strung across a clothesline, symbolized the missing stories in the family's history. In contrast, act two's completely bare stage symbolizes a vacancy in the lives of the new generation of characters - a vacancy perhaps brought on by their forgotten heritage.

Act one was shorter and arguably more colorful in the characters' extremes, while act two felt freer in its use of space, time and language. The actors' strong New York accents of act one seemed to uncomfortably control their acting choices. In act two, the actors portray the new generation of more contemporary characters with a sense of freedom and ease. Kiel played her consistently cynical Celia with hilarious flair, as Dennis, in turn, expressed more of the subtleties in Nell's emotional swings. In fact, act two's humor mirrored act one in its verbal irony and the movement ­- for example, a random Weckler/Orbison chase across stage - renewed playfulness in the actors that made even the subtlest facial expressions hilarious.

Comedy took many forms in the production - from the quick-paced humor during the phone conversations between Kiel, Weckler and Orbison, to Dry's wordless return as deadpan Waitress, comically resembling Ma. More impressive, however, was how the actors experimented with the script's humor without sacrificing the melancholy behind it. They convincingly struggled to find themselves by using well-placed silences to measure their uneasy feeling of stasis - not knowing how to push life forward without pulling back. Orbison gave a heartbreaking performance as Ev, whose stuttered speech and nervous movements showed an uncomfortable hesitation at moving forward after his fiance, Laurel (Weckler), left him at the altar.

The problem, however, was that Greenberg's text in act two felt like a stutter of sorts. Its vaguely-motivated monologues and short abrupt scenes lacked satisfying resolutions. Weckler's return home is anti-climactic, the sisters' embrace is unreciprocated and the discovery of Celia's heroic act to bare her grandmother's death alone appears confusingly selfish. The play reveals that history repeats itself and that we are ultimately asking the same questions - where are we going and where have we been? Without fulfillment at the scenes' end, however, the recurring questions only became exasperating and tedious. If the characters don't find their answers, why care about the play at all?

Though Kiel appears to calm down when she reveals her grandmother's death to Dennis, demonstrating that one cannot put stories to rest until you have searched for them, she still does not seem to have moved forward. In her last line, Kiel does not recognize the temporal symbol of the Pacific Ocean, saying, "What am I looking at again? Is this an inlet, cove or some certain beach with a name?"

Greenberg is clearly not willing to make the answers obvious for his audience. But by juxtaposing realism and symbolism, humor and seriousness, irony and sincerity, Sprigg's production clarified the spectrum of questions that Greenberg's play presents. Everett Beekin thus wrestled the dilemma of history and future with a contemplation that forced the audience to struggle with this question of identity.