SOMETHING UNSPOKEN
The situation in Home Free! is human, all right, and as personal as hemorrhoids. Lawrence and Joanna Brown are brother and sister, living together in a happy and interdependent state of incest–Larry is afraid to go outside their apartment, and Joanna, who’s less agoraphobic, has no fewer shingles loose on her roof than her brother. They amuse themselves with show-and-tell games, give each other little gifts, make fun of the grown-ups who believe Joanna’s stories about her “husband,” scold imaginary children, and do everything they can to ignore the practical problems involved in having a very real baby together. All this information is given to us in the first few minutes (the play’s overture finishes with the Looney Tunes theme), so the play consists of two characters behaving in character for an excruciatingly long time before Joanna conveniently dies from irritatingly vague causes. (The symptoms resemble those of a heart attack, but there’s no previous indication of a heart problem or any other pathological condition but an incestuous pregnancy.)
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Credit is also due to the extremely skilled performers, who portray these modern obscenities with an empathy and conviction that go far beyond the usual cuddly-crazy cliches. Particularly outstanding is Tilney Sheldon, whose terminally vulgar Velma Sparrow asserts her humanity pitifully and terribly. As her would-be seducer, Steve Wallem isn’t given much to do, but he stalks his prey with a surly tomcat sensuality. As the Brown siblings, Sean O’Neil and Liane Davidson are handicapped by the inert script but deliver performances far better than the material deserves.
