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Welcome to Family Week
Henley’s tale of psychoanalysis now at Lucille Lortel
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Family Week is, arguably, not one of Beth Henley’s better-known plays; it hasn’t won a Pulitzer, as Crimes of the Heart did, and it hasn’t been made into a Holly Hunter movie, as The Miss Firecracker Contest was. There is no good reason for this. It is a beautiful look into the darkest side of families that is easily relatable to many. The MCC is doing a great service by making it part of their season. However, this production’s performances and the work itself don’t marry well. It is lucky that Henley’s work holds up under a curious lack of clarity.
It is “Family Week” at a treatment center in the middle of the desert. Claire (Rosemarie Dewitt), a patient undergoing treatment for “eating disorders and abuse survival”, gets a visit from her sister (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), her daughter (Sami Gayle), and her mother (Kathleen Chalfant). This would be fine, except for the fact that the three are the sources of all of Claire’s problems and the reasons for her being there. The four women are forced to try to salvage their relationships and face their own neuroses in a hurry. The result is a play that answers the question as to what happens when a family can’t hide anymore.
Dewitt is magnetic, Bernstine is a talented comic, Gayle is charming, and Chalfant is highly believable, but the cast could have done much more with Henley’s highly intelligent and powerful material. There was a layer under the surface of the production that was not brought to the surface but merely hinted at. It ends up being the subject matter that steals the show, and not the actors. The performances should have rendered any intellectual thoughts of subject matter secondary.
As a positive, Derek McLane’s rustic set is as beautiful as it is practical. Divided into three parts, it serves the actors well. Perhaps the most important part of the show, an easel and paper with the six primary emotions (anger, pain, shame, guilt, fear and loneliness) written on it, is omnipresent.
The production has moments of power, but they are not built towards and are therefore hard to emotionally connect to. Without the clarity of some notable climaxes within the production, the play’s ending was abrupt and left some questions wanting. Instead of getting lost in the play, there is getting lost in the delivery.
Despite all of this, Henley’s work is still familial struggle at its best. See Family Week, if only to observe the story that there is to be told. Just expect to listen between the lines to find it at times.
Family Week runs until May 23. For tickets and more information, visit www.mcctheater.org or call (212) 279-4200.