GENERATIONS
There’s something insidious about contemporary family dramas–the familiar situations, the archetypal family members, the soap opera undercurrents mobilized by Crisis or Christmas. Then come the routine confrontations and predictable revelations, the resolution of petty grudges that have ballooned over time, usually through the liberal laying on of sentiment. The main objective of a family drama would seem to be the exploration of family relationships, but often these relationships are so pat that exploration is rendered unnecessary. What such dramas deliver, in the end, is reassurance. A collection of strangers gathered around a barbecue in act one is bound to dissolve into tearful proclamations of devotion in act two, proving that everything is OK–you don’t need to like your family in order to love them. And you can leave the theater secure in the knowledge that yours is not the only screwed-up house on the block.
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Generations, by Dennis Clontz, works very hard. Being given its midwest premiere by Griffin Theatre Company in its new, impressively renovated home in the Calo Theatre, the play struggles to take off but never gets clear of the sort of foggy sentimentality that plagues nostalgic prodigal sons and daughters and made-for-TV movies.
And aside from the relationship between husband and wife, the family’s problems seem trivial and cliched. Eldest son Aron is dutiful, reasonable, and trapped in a passionless marriage. As played by Ed Shimp, he is an unceasingly cheerful creep who is still reliving his high school basketball career. Younger son Joseph is sullen and rebellious and disappointed in everyone, though his high horse doesn’t afford him a clear enough view to treat his long-suffering girlfriend Lilith (jean Campbell) with much consideration. (Jamie Denton gives Joseph energy and some imagination, but he needs to beware of his native Nashville twang creeping up on him at odd moments.) Judith competes with the boys, whines about not being loved as much as they, and is almost as abominable to Lilith as Joseph is. Peggy Dunne treats Judith with sympathy, but it’s difficult for anyone else to. Mel Zellman uses his mellifluous voice to convey Joshua’s fatherly grandeur, pain, and panic but never commits physically to the moment.
In order to fit all these issues into one mid-sized evening of theater, the Beachams have their children over for dinner. The whiny, manipulative Norris and her nebbishy husband are on the cusp of a divorce; Norris is carrying another man’s child. Homosexual son Nick brings his alcoholic lover Guy. Over champagne Glen announces that, with Bonnie’s blessing, he intends to kill himself–“or have someone else do it”–before his (unspecified) terminal disease can rob him of dignity.
