[ssba]
hey brother
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Son of Semele Theatre
Through Dec. 14
Bekah Brunstetter’s newest play is about brothers: what it means to live with a sibling you’re not compatible with, and what it’s like to long for one who may not exist.
Twenty-somethings Isaac (Lucas Dixon) and Ben (Graham Outerbridge) share Ben’s house but otherwise have little in common except their mom, who checks up on them regularly via the phone. A graduate student who’s traveled in Europe, Isaac’s a principled guy who drinks moderately, reasons with his plaintive mother, and helps out when the crasser Ben, who has a drinking problem, needs a lift or gets into a brawl. Ben’s been getting into a lot of these lately; he’s in a funk, and recently split from his girlfriend Dawn, who won’t take his phone calls or his apologies. But though he parties like a perennial frat boy, it’s Ben who wields the power; it’s his house and he uses the threat of eviction to lord over his brother.
Isaac’s love life, by contrast, is on the upswing. He’s just met someone he thinks is cute. Just staring at her photo makes him smile.
The gal in question, Kris (Kahyun Kim) grew up adopted but fantasizes about her Asian birth parents and the brother or sister she might have had. Although she and Isaac like each other a lot, it’s her desperate need to connect — to compensate for the dismissive treatment of her adoptive parent — that propels her into Isaac’s arms (and after a few too many beers and glasses of Jack Daniels, into Ben’s as well).
Much of what’s likable about this show reflects off the performers. Under Alexis Jacknow’s direction, their believable personas lend heft to a script that’s on target with basics — dialogue, character and conflict — but lacks subtlety and back story. Isaac and Ben’s mom, for example, is never more than a device, and Ben’s position as mortgage-payer also seems contrived; we never see him dressed for business, or on the phone with a client, or reading the financial pages, or behaving in any way like a person holding down any job, let alone an upscale one. His role as the guy with the money serves the plot but it’s not in keeping with how we read the rest of him.
On the other hand as an insensitive jock playing power games with his vulnerable bro, who is sleeping on his couch, Outerbridge is suitably convincing. Less hobbled than Outerbridge by an unsympathetic role, the close-cropped Dixon — who resembles a Marine out of uniform — shines against type as the responsible Isaac, whose self-controlling demeanor falls away in the company of what just might be the right girl. And for a while we too hope that she is, prompted by the considerable charm and comic timing that Kim as his love interest brings to the stage.
Son of Semele, 3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Dec. 14. (213) 351-3507, www.sonofsemele.org.
