Lucy Thurber’s Killers and Other Family, in which the past and present collide for the dazed and battered refugee of a rural Massachusetts upbringing, is a tense, frightening one-act play that never quite rings true.
Oh sure, imagining Elizabeth (Samantha Soule) embarrassed by her past, one which springs horrifyingly back to life when her brother Jeff (Dashiell Eaves) drags his best friend Danny (Shane McRae) back into Elizabeth’s life and the NYC apartment she shares with her lover Claire (Aya Cash), is realistic enough. These are born and bred country boys, who start complaining about the lack of green in New York City almost as soon as they’ve arrived. And as if their uncouthness weren’t enough, they’re also on the run from the cops. And want Elizabeth to clear out her bank account to finance their flight to Mexico.
That Elizabeth almost immediately agrees to give them all her cash strains credibility, but Jeff is family, and some people still believe that family is all-important. But what neither Thurber, director Caitriona McLaughlin or Soule herself can smooth over is Elizabeth’s sudden and frequent personality shifts. One moment she’s the hard-working PhD student, appalled that Jeff and Danny are upsetting her carefully controlled life, and the next she’s gulping Jack Daniels from the bottle and dancing to Lauryn Hill, delighting Danny and shocking Claire. These aren’t believable lapses into the person Elizabeth used to be; these are clearly author-ordained decisions that in no way feel an organic outgrowth of Elizabeth’s situation.
What saves the play from total implausibility are the performances. Cash and Eaves do as well as they can with their thankless roles (the twitchy, scared girlfriend and the twitchy, angry brother), but it’s Soule and McRae who make Killers worth seeing. Soule’s fearless performance, both emotional and physical, is a marvel of instinct and technique, but one that is ultimately defeated by the defects in Thurber’s play. McRae isn’t saddled with plausibility, making Danny at once both alluring and terrifying. Long in love with Elizabeth, and intent on making her bow to his will, he embarks on a play-long mind fuck that is as compelling as it is traumatic. Physically overpowering (McRae seems to fill the stage with his entrance), Danny is the hometown bad boy who has fulfilled everyone’s dark prophecies of his future. But his bad behavior does little to mitigate the affection and loyalty of his oldest friends. And that’s a conflict that’s entirely believable.
>Killers and Other Family
Through Oct. 17, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, 224 Waverly Pl. (betw. Perry & W. 11th Sts.), 212-868-4444; times vary, $45.
Oh sure, imagining Elizabeth (Samantha Soule) embarrassed by her past, one which springs horrifyingly back to life when her brother Jeff (Dashiell Eaves) drags his best friend Danny (Shane McRae) back into Elizabeth’s life and the NYC apartment she shares with her lover Claire (Aya Cash), is realistic enough. These are born and bred country boys, who start complaining about the lack of green in New York City almost as soon as they’ve arrived. And as if their uncouthness weren’t enough, they’re also on the run from the cops. And want Elizabeth to clear out her bank account to finance their flight to Mexico.
That Elizabeth almost immediately agrees to give them all her cash strains credibility, but Jeff is family, and some people still believe that family is all-important. But what neither Thurber, director Caitriona McLaughlin or Soule herself can smooth over is Elizabeth’s sudden and frequent personality shifts. One moment she’s the hard-working PhD student, appalled that Jeff and Danny are upsetting her carefully controlled life, and the next she’s gulping Jack Daniels from the bottle and dancing to Lauryn Hill, delighting Danny and shocking Claire. These aren’t believable lapses into the person Elizabeth used to be; these are clearly author-ordained decisions that in no way feel an organic outgrowth of Elizabeth’s situation.
What saves the play from total implausibility are the performances. Cash and Eaves do as well as they can with their thankless roles (the twitchy, scared girlfriend and the twitchy, angry brother), but it’s Soule and McRae who make Killers worth seeing. Soule’s fearless performance, both emotional and physical, is a marvel of instinct and technique, but one that is ultimately defeated by the defects in Thurber’s play. McRae isn’t saddled with plausibility, making Danny at once both alluring and terrifying. Long in love with Elizabeth, and intent on making her bow to his will, he embarks on a play-long mind fuck that is as compelling as it is traumatic. Physically overpowering (McRae seems to fill the stage with his entrance), Danny is the hometown bad boy who has fulfilled everyone’s dark prophecies of his future. But his bad behavior does little to mitigate the affection and loyalty of his oldest friends. And that’s a conflict that’s entirely believable.
>Killers and Other Family
Through Oct. 17, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, 224 Waverly Pl. (betw. Perry & W. 11th Sts.), 212-868-4444; times vary, $45.
