THE HOUSE OF YES
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Set during a hurricane on Thanksgiving 1988, the black comedy depicts the Pascals, an amoral upper-class Virginia family who are fixated on trying to be like their neighbors, the Kennedy clan. At the head of the twisted bunch is the matriarch, a snob who’s helpless in the worst passive-aggressive way. Comparatively uncorrupted younger son Anthony is a college dropout who’s woefully unready for real life. The craziest Pascal is daughter Jackie-O. Glamorous, spoiled, and insane when not medicated, she’s the evil twin sister of Marty, whom Jackie-O loves with much more than sisterly affection.
Marty returns for Thanksgiving with his new fiancee, Lesly, a sweet-tempered waitress with the distinct advantage of not being a Pascal. When he blandly announces, “I love her and I’m trying to follow procedure,” Jackie-O springs to claim her incestuous rights. She entices Marty into a disturbed Kennedy impersonation where she dresses like her namesake in teased wig, pillbox hat, and blood-spattered dress; brother and sister wave from an imaginary motorcade, then Marty mimes being shot as Jackie-O screams hysterically. (It’s no funnier than it sounds.)
Though defeated by the staging’s tepid pace, the strong cast does all it can to turn easy targets into cunning stereotypes. As the regal mother, Maggie Speer combines the vaporous delicacy of O’Neill’s Mary Tyrone with the hauteur Nancy Marchand brought to Lou Grant. Playing Jackie-O with demented vigor, Jamie Pachino suggests all the renegade narcissism that might lead her into incest. Paul Engelhardt plays Marty with weak-kneed imbecility.
