A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes

 Reviewed by Gray Palmer
Theatre of NOTE
Through December 10.

Kate Benson’s A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes — imagine that title said quickly by a professional announcer as he is actually thinking of something else — is like a comic holiday card with a black border. It’s a frosty-green punch-drunk treatment of a large family’s Thanksgiving dinner, hosted by sisters named Cheesecake, Cherry Pie and Trifle. And the events of this gathering are mediated for the audience by two sportscasters.

Benson’s clever play received an Obie citation in 2015. The text is a lot of fun to read and includes a set of fascinating instructions to director and performers. Were these followed by the company at Theatre of NOTE? I think not altogether, and with mixed results.

First Quarter: The Three Sisters are putting together the large table. They are slightly OCD — it takes a while. Second Quarter: Guests arrive — and they come in a burst. The family is identified for us by emblematic nicknames: Trainer & Partner with babies, progenitors SnapDragon and Grandada, Runnerman with babies, Smilesinger & Husband with babies, Twins & Wives, Republican & Wife with babies. All babies are deposited in the guest room.

There is cheerful (mostly) bickering as everyone settles into Cheesecake’s suddenly crowded house. Half-time: Frosty Green Punch and deviled eggs are served. Then Gumbo arrives.

At Theatre of NOTE, with the entrance of the family scapegoat, Gumbo (the terrific Nicole Gabriella Scipione), this production finds a very funny center. Supervised make-work is given for clumsy Gumbo, but unfortunately during last-minute prep in the kitchen she is asked to chop bread. She seems to lose the tip of a finger but tries not to bleed on the potatoes. We then follow the family through meal and dessert, then into a food-coma sleepytime. At which point the babies darkly emerge…

Benson’s play seems to ask, “Have the forces that shaped these rituals also unleashed a future of cannibalism?” (Not a far-fetched question after election week.)

Playwright Benson has intended that the narrative line should be the ur-material of a theatrical event. Narrative details are provided in language by the announcer and color-commentator — and no props are to be used. The disjunction between language and stage action might give an effect like watching a Cargo-cult enactment of Thanksgiving, or the familiar as seen by someone coming down with a Martian flu.

Relevant instructions from Benson include: “… it is important not to replicate action being discussed with matching physical action… This play is not a radio play. This play is not an event that happens in a mimetic rendering of a house… So: no table.”

These key notions were not followed by director Laramie Dennis, but especially fatal was a set dominated by a long table, at which, for much of the play, the cast was seated. The unfunny result was mid-way between a staged reading and a production. Almost as unfortunate was the frequent direct illustration of the narrative by the sisters at the top of the show.

However, there was valiant effort by the talented cast and some intermittently sweet work, especially by Judith Ann Levitt and John MacKane. The company includes Christopher Neiman, Kjai Block, Sarah Lilly, Tegan Ashton Cohan, Debbie Jaffee, David Bickford and Rebecca Light.

Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. through December 10 (no performances Thanksgiving weekend). (323) 856-8611, theatreofnote.com . Running time: 85 minutes without intermission.