Wendy Hammers and Rick Zieff (Photo by Sofia Riccio)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Electric Lodge
Thru March 2
RECOMMENDED
It’s shocking to realize that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t officially recognized as a medical diagnosis until 1980. Yet for some children of World War II combat veterans, the syndrome was all too evident in the vacant stares and emotional inaccessibility of their fathers. Some found an outlet for their inner tumult in physical abuse, venting their psychic demons on their wives and children.
I was fortunate that my loving and heroically cheerful father kept his combat trauma largely hidden from his family. But I remember the pall that would descend over my friends’ households when their World War II veteran fathers came home from work and the lighthearted atmosphere in their homes suddenly shifted to darkness — lingering and buried pain that, years later, caused my best friend’s father, a fighter pilot, to end his life.
Dennis Danziger may not have meant The Brothers Abelson Since 1946, his new play now at The Electric Lodge in Venice, to be specifically about PTSD. Indeed, his plot segues into various other directions, some dramatic dead ends. But the play’s moving message about the psychic toll of war is this world premiere’s ultimate takeaway.
For Isaac (Rick Zieff), who fought at Anzio, the years of unresolved feelings are finally surfacing, disastrously. An observant Jew, his trauma is generational, stemming back to the memories of his forebears fleeing Lithuania with the shirts on their backs. Raised in poverty, Isaac has always taken pride in providing a more affluent life for his wife and two sons and has never resorted to physical violence as an outlet for his suppressed trauma. He has kept his abuse carefully and unwittingly psychological, a toxic spume of negativity that has enveloped his family for decades.
Now in the midst of a breakdown, Isaac has become so intolerably overbearing that his wife, Mirian (Wendy Hammers), is about to pull the plug on their 30-year-plus marriage. When their younger son Benny (Jonah Robinson) returns home for the first time in two years to spend Thanksgiving with his parents, he enters a domestic war zone.
It seems that a year prior Isaac had abruptly sold off the wall-to-wall carpet business he’d run with his younger brother since the end of the war. (The “mysterious” circumstances of just why he sold out are frequently teased throughout the play.) With no daily regimen to center him, Isaac has collapsed into bitterness and regret that, if left unchecked, could prove fatal. And the cocktail of psychotropic medications he has been prescribed could only be making things worse.
Benny, a struggling cartoonist living in New York, is heavily subsidized by Isaac, who never fails to remind his son what a “loser” he is. Miriam, whose attitude towards her husband oscillates between contempt and protectiveness, is a world-class guilt-tripper who is determined to hand off Isaac’s day-to-day care to Benny, at least temporarily. But Benny is understandably reluctant to undertake such a task.
Meanwhile, both Isaac and Miriam are oblivious to the fact that they have the power to inflict lasting scars. They wield their words like cleavers, with a casual, bloody bluntness that is alternately horrifying and hilarious.
David Offner’s simple set provides the perfect domestic microcosm for Danziger’s comedy-drama. Director Matthew Leavitt has coaxed exceptional performances out of his cast, most particularly Zieff, whose volatile, vicious Isaac is a wounded animal, pitiful in his pain but dangerous upon approach.
There are apparent weaknesses in the play’s structure: The revelation of the shocking “secret” behind Isaac’s recent retirement is anticlimactic, while the family’s eleventh-hour emotional transition is a shade too pat. However, Danziger’s richly believable characters and crackling dialogue make up for those shortcomings.
At its heart, The Brothers Abelson Since 1946 is about survival — not just of war, but of family. The sweet and moving denouement reminds us that even the most apparently hopeless families may find redemption by confronting specters of the past.
Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru March 2. http://abelsonplay.com Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
