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Solid as a Crumbling Rock
The New Group’s Blood From A Stone
Photo: Monique Carboni
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After seeing the New Group’s production of playwright Tommy Nohilly’s debut show Blood From A Stone, I didn’t know whether to pop pills, bet against the Eagles, break into my neighbor’s house or run off with his wife. Who says theater can’t be inspiring? Thanks Off-Broadway.
But before jumping to any conclusions, let’s start at the beginning and attempt to make sense of director Scott Elliott’s briskly-paced depiction of a working-class Connecticut family. It is falling apart faster than their rundown house, with its holes in the roof that leak into the kitchen and down to the debris-strewn basement of the family’s soul.
Ethan Hawke stars as Travis, the oldest son of Bill (Gordon Clapp) and Margaret (Ann Dowd), a bitter, blue-collar couple who have turned too many blind eyes to the addictions of both Travis, a career drifter with a fondness for pain killers, and his brother Matt (Thomas Guiry), whose gambling problem repeatedly betrays his family’s trust and bank account. In addition, Matt’s affair with a married mother of four, with whom he plans to move into the family’s split-level madhouse, doesn’t exactly ease tensions either. Despite his efforts to brighten up the place with a silver Christmas tree brought in fully-assembled, with decorations from who-knows-where. Best not to ask, all will be revealed in time, a little too much time actually.
Indeed, the well-designed, dilapidated kitchen/living room stage is an emotional battlefield in a 35-year war, as the curtain rises on a holiday season so grim the Grinch himself would shake his green head and gladly return with gifts: Vicodin for Travis, an off-shore gambling credit for Matt, new tools for Dad to replace his drills that were recently stolen and maybe a new cat for Mom, as Coco the family feline has gone missing (not that you could blame any creature, or audience member who wanted to make himself scarce from these blackly comedic, but nevertheless unpleasant proceedings). Warning: If you have a problem with the F-word, stay the F- away from this play, because though Mom may win top prize, Dad isn’t far behind, especially when “F- the neighborhood!” is his impassioned answer to keeping his voice down. Yet despite the lies, deceit, drugs and other bold-faced and bare-assed indiscretions, this regrettably related crew does what all good families do: stick together, look out for each other and when the opportunity arises, deliver a much-deserved and long overdue beating to the offending member. Crazy Connecticut.
If all this sounds like a lot to handle, you don’t know until you’ve sat there, eighth row, cringing in horrified amazement, not only at the situations that this once presumably normal family now finds itself in, but in the cast’s uncanny, natural performances, which also include Natasha Lyonne as Sarah, the family’s devoted daughter and Daphne Rubin-Vega as Yvette, Travis’ high school sweetheart, now living next door with kids of her own. Even though she’s now “married with children” (to name another family drama that Blood From A Stone brings to mind), Yvette’s love light still burns for Travis and her panties disappear whenever he’s near, necessitating a quick half-dressed getaway when their mid-afternoon delight is unceremoniously interrupted.
Hard as all the ensuing domestic mayhem may be to take, especially before the blessed fifteen-minute intermission, as dysfunctional family drama goes, Blood From A Stone flows with the best of ‘em. Part Death of a Salesman, part Lie of the Mind, (which the New Group revived in 2010) and part “$h*! My Dad Says,” you’ll exit the Acorn Theater shell-shocked, but grateful that your own batty brood isn’t as nutty as Travis, Matt and Coco’s. Every family has a skeleton or two in its closet, this caustic, but close-knit crew just happens to have a whole bloody cemetery.