PRECIOUS SONS
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Set on the south side of Chicago, the play focuses on a lower-middle-class family, the Smalls (the name recalls Arthur Miller’s decision to name the hero of his Death of a Salesman Loman–low man). Fred, the father, seems a loutish but lovable truck driver, a man’s man who likes to roughhouse with his sons and toss sexy jokes at his wife Bea (“With an ass like that, Chicago doesn’t need a moon!”). She, meanwhile, comes off at first as a typically fussy martyr-mom, playfully bickering with her menfolk while trying to keep things running in something close to an orderly fashion. The two boys are poised to make major moves in their lives: goofy, jerky Art is graduating from high school, and, we sense, something serious is afoot between him and his girlfriend Sandra; 14-year-old Freddy, a straight-A scholar and successful child actor, has just finished eighth grade and is set to choose between the prestigious University of Chicago Lab School and a job in a Broadway touring company.
The humorous breakfast-table banter that begins the play seems to be the loving but slightly chafing interplay between any close-knit family. But with increasing starkness, Furth exposes what’s beneath the surface: a ferocious battle between Fred and his queen Bea for supremacy of the household and the future of their precious sons.
Precious Sons is an actor’s dream, and the excellent Pegasus Players cast dig into their roles with relish. With her constant motion, slightly wary attitude, droning voice, and reined-in intensity, Lee Guthrie gives a brilliant performance as Bea that challenges the audience to deal with this often insufferable, but clearly suffering, woman. Guthrie really makes you feel the sense of alienation that permeates Bea’s compulsive attempts to control her world, yet also makes it believable that the people closest to her can’t see her pain. Gary Brichetto is a fine partner to Guthrie, fusing macho grittiness with a common man’s self-doubting insecurity as the physically strong but weak-willed Fred. Michael Govern is just right as the impulsive, dorky Art–the all-too-real teen type exploited (but sanitized) by such actors as Richard Crenna, Tony Dow, and Tommy Kirk in the 1950s. And Christian Robinson, just out of eighth grade himself, effectively handles his pivotal role as Freddy, the pawn in Bea’s bloody game of hearts.
