Theatre in Review: Regular Singing (The Public Theater)As Cole Porter once wrote, "Every time we say good-bye, we die a little," and many fans of Richard Nelson's Apple Family plays will experience a little bit of death at Regular Singing, the fourth and final play in the series. What started out as an experiment in drama as journalism has grown to become an extraordinarily rich family chronicle, one that has volumes to say about the way we live now. For those who came in late, the Apples are a family consisting mostly of middle-aged siblings living in Rhinebeck, New York. The one out-of-towner is Richard, a lawyer who is newly divorced and working for the Cuomo administration in Albany. Barbara, who teaches high school, lives with Marian, a third-grade teacher. Jane, the youngest, a struggling writer whose books of social history don't sell, lives down the street with her boyfriend, Tim, an actor whose career has stalled. Now installed nearby in an assisted living facility is Benjamin, the siblings' uncle, once an actor of note now suffering significant memory loss following a heart attack. Each play is set on a specific date -- the elections of 2010 and 2012, the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and, in Regular Singing, the 50th anniversary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination. I hate to use the word "Chekhovian," since it gets thrown at any playwright who has trouble coming up with a plot, but, in plays ranging from Some Americans Abroad to Nikolai and the Others, Nelson has authentically earned it with intensively detailed studies of communities of exiles. The Apples aren't exiles, exactly, but, as middle-class liberals, they are spiritually adrift in an America they no longer recognize as their own. The first play in the series, That Hopey Changey Thing, explored their disaffection with politics in the era of Obama and the Tea Party, but, even as they retain an unusual degree of topicality, each successive work has quietly edged toward deeper, more metaphysical concerns. Thus, Regular Singing artfully intertwines memories of Kennedy's death with a lament for the divided nature of the American people today and a consideration of mortality. Barbara reads Tom Wicker's New York Times account of the aftermath of Kennedy's death, noting how the writer's careful attention to detail adds gravity to his prose; her account of what this terrible event means to her young students is both amusing and dismaying. Richard offers some hilariously pointed commentary about the now-and-forever corruption of New York state politics, even under the supposed reform administration of Andrew Cuomo. Marian, who lost her daughter to suicide in Sweet and Sad (the 2011 play), is busy caring for her terminally ill ex-husband, assisted by Barbara. As in all the plays, there is very little action, but the conversation ranges all over the map, touching on the legalization of casino gambling, the eerie afterlife of Facebook pages of the dead, the similarities between Joseph Kennedy and King Lear, and the troubled launch of Obamacare. Historical allusions abound: There is a disturbingly detailed story about the transportation of Abraham Lincoln's body to Albany after his assassination and an amusing discussion of the entirely spurious history of the famous painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware." More and more, however, we see the Apples taking stock of their small victories and considerable losses. Following his divorce, Richard has buried himself in his work; it takes an intervention by the others before he admits to suffering any pain. (Nelson's grasp of sibling dynamics is worthy of a Ph.D. in psychology, especially in the scenes in which all three sisters gang up on Richard.) Barbara, having painfully surrendered Benjamin to the care of an institution, is still busy ordering everyone about, the better to avoid the emptiness in her own life. Marian, poleaxed by tragedy, finds healing in caring for the man she once hated. Jane and Tim are facing the fact that success in their fields has passed them by; Jane worries about her son, a true millennial who cannot find a satisfactory career or decent health care. And the omnipresent Benjamin -- sometimes childlike, sometimes surprisingly acute -- is a constant reminder of where all of them are headed. Hanging over all of them is the ongoing family mystery, now lost in the mists of Benjamin's memory: How close was he to the siblings' mother? And could he be Jane's father? You can even say that Nelson, who also directed, is Chekhovian in his staging, as he and his cast strive for -- and achieve -- a level of naturalism that is unmatched in my experience. Seeing an Apple Family play is like sitting in a room with old friends as they open up about their dreams, hopes, and sorrows, while also offering up-to-date commentary about the state of the world. The four returning members of the company are, quite simply, matchless. Jay O. Sanders' Richard has a puckish wit yet is capable of breaking down in tears under the weight of his unhappiness. Maryann Plunkett's Barbara, the family's de facto mother, is still an expert at dispensing guilt, but she reads the excerpts from Wicker's articles with a plangent emotional transparency. Laila Robins' Marian has evolved from a spiky, almost cruelly outspoken character to a sadder, gentler person. And Jon DeVries is, as always, a compelling enigma as Benjamin, whose rare moments of lucidity add to the riddle of his illness. Two newcomers bring new values to their roles. Sally Murphy's Jane is more ethereal than the self-doubting, slightly whiny character created by J. Smith-Cameron. (Murphy hasn't entirely mastered the intimate performance style and is sometimes hard to hear.) And Stephen Kunken's Tim is more voluble and more at home among the Apples than was Shuler Hensley in the previous productions. (This is partly because Tim has become fully absorbed into the clan, to the point he is a regular victim of Barbara's scolding.) Everything else remains the same, including Susan Hilferty's set and costumes, Jennifer Tipton's lighting, and the sound by Scott Lehrer and Will Pickens. Regular Singing -- and the entire Apple cycle -- ends on a grace note, with Barbara making a sweet, short, heartfelt speech about the importance of coming together. She is, of course, speaking of her family, but the words apply equally to those members of the audience who have followed the Apples from the beginning and who must surely feel a powerful identification with them. By giving voice to their hopes and fears, Nelson has done more than write a quartet of plays. In a small, but important, way, he has built a little community.--David Barbour 
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