The Humans
Reviewed by Dana Martin
Center Theatre Group at the Ahmanson Theatre
Through July 29th
Family has an uncanny ability to reveal one’s flaws— and usually over dinner. Stephen Karam’s Tony Award winning domestic drama, The Humans, focuses on a middle-class family gathered together and struggling to thrive. The play obtusely navigates the various effects the erosion of the middle class has on the family unit, often through contrasting the lens of the millennial vs. baby boomer world view.
Brigid Blake (Sarah Steele) and her affable boyfriend Richard (Nick Mills) invite the Blake family to NYC from Scranton, Pa. for a family Thanksgiving at their new multilevel Chinatown digs. Brigid, an artist saddled with student loan debt, has just moved in with her boyfriend to help make ends meet (much to the disapproval of her parents). Big sister Aimee (Cassie Beck) is dealing poorly with a painful breakup and with losing her job, while coping with a chronic illness. Parents Erik (Reed Birney) and Deirdre (Jane Houdyshell) struggle under the stress of providing full-time care for elderly, wheelchair- bound Momo (Lauren Klein), who suffers from dementia. A prevailing sense of the family’s desperation, the presence of supernatural forces and constant pounding on the walls by unseen neighbors exasperate the onstage conflict creating an unsettling atmosphere.
This particular production of The Humans re-unites most of the original Broadway cast. It’s fine ensemble work and the actors work with a sense of ease, having clearly spent a long time with the material and one other. Reed Birney and Jane Houdyshell gracefully embrace the painful, elusive struggle of aging parents in financial dire straits, pushed to their physical and emotional limits. Birney’s Erik is constantly seized by a sense of fear and dread. Cassie Beck finds emotional depth with ease as eldest sister Aimee. Sarah Steele’s Brigid is stubborn and explosive. Lauren Klein’s Momo is excellent, and she swings from docile and disoriented to fits of rage. Nick Mills rounds out the cast nicely as outsider Richard, the agreeable boyfriend on his best behavior.
Director Joe Mantello (who also helmed the Broadway incarnation) achieves a restrained tempo throughout and extracts all of the story’s nuance. But much of the play’s required intimacy is lost in the massive space of the Ahmanson. The play feels too small.
Excellent scenic design by David Zinn creates multiple opportunities for private moments, asides and split-focus scenes — and the multi-level apartment is semi-creepy and unwelcoming. Justin Townsend’s lighting design is epically domestic. Costume design by Sarah Laux is straight-forward and uncomplicated.
The Blakes struggle to overcome health crises, personal setbacks, financial struggles, even infidelity, with little hope for success. The play’s final moments are dark and foreboding — no denouement, no real end to the story. We long for comfort and reassurance but The Humans leaves behind a lingering sense of uneasiness, a vague, gathering panic. Feels just like home.
The Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m., Sat., 2 p.m. & 8 p.m., Sun. 1 p.m. & 6:30 p.m.; through July 29th. (213) 972-4400 or www.CenterTheatreGroup.org. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
