Theatre in Review: Family Furniture (The Flea Theatre)

	Carolyn McCormick, Peter Scolari. Photo: Joan Marcus

A.R. Gurney's new play is set at a summer cottage on Lake Erie, and it is a most apt location, for the family depicted here is very much like a lake: opaque when viewed from a distance, yet filled with hidden depths and equally hidden dangers, with the prospect of turbulence ever present. For decades, Gurney has ribbed the WASP code of manners, sometimes gently, sometimes with a colder eye; this time, he digs a little deeper, showing how manners can be a shield against betrayal at home and the displacements of an ever-changing world.

Russell is a typically stodgy Gurney patriarch, careful with a dollar, devoted to a precisely calibrated cocktail hour, and horrified at such modern vulgarities as television sets and airplane travel. (The time is the early 1950s.) As the play begins, he is in a state of anxiety because Claire, his wife, has gone to New York City on a shopping trip and cannot be reached on the phone at the ungodly hour of 11pm. Nick, their son, tries to explain it away, but Russell is having none of it. "New York is one of the most dangerous cities in the entire free world," he says. "And your lovely mother has chosen to visit it instead of being here with me, watching the summer moon rise over Lake Erie."

Nick's sense of surety is deeply undermined, however, when Peggy, his sister, points out that Howard, a longtime family friend, is also in New York on this very night. Outraged, Nick asks, "Are you saying our own mother is shacking up on the sly with Howard Baldwin?"

This question hangs in the air all summer long as the family goes about its normal business. Nick tries, quietly but with increasing urgency, to discover the truth, but Claire remains maddeningly elusive, even as gossip in their little summer community becomes increasingly hard to ignore. Meanwhile, Russell is disturbed by Peggy's growing attachment to Marco, a young Italian-American man. Not that Russell is prejudiced, mind you: "The Italians are wonderful in their homes," he says. But, he warns, with perfect fatuity, sooner or later, Marco will "feel cut off from his roots. All Italians do -- so they become gangsters or politicians." So determined is Russell to put the kibosh on this romance that he offers to send Peggy to Italy for several weeks with a gang of Smith girls, gambling that a close-up look at classical Italy will dim the attraction of a working-class immigrant like Marco. Peggy takes him up on his offer, a decision that leads to disaster.

As Gurney gently, but insistently, makes clear, such difficulties are the norm rather than the exception, even in the best of families. Russell admits to having had a youthful fling with a Jewish girl before taking up matrimonially with the far more socially suitable, if possibly unfaithful, Claire. Then there's Aunt Annie, who ran off with her chauffeur. ("But she came back," adds Peggy, just for the record.) Meanwhile, Nick spots Claire and Howard's cars parked outside a remote cabin in the woods, and soon he is taking a black eye to defend Claire's honor from a wiseacre friend. As Nick struggles with his suspicions and Peggy's personal life becomes heartbreakingly complicated, America is being riven by the lies of Joe McCarthy, and the Korean War looms ever nearer. And only we in the audience know that the Buffalo of society balls and philharmonic galas administered by a WASP aristocracy is soon to fade away altogether, another victim of rust belt economics.

As always, Gurney has plenty of amusing points to make, about the alleged iniquity of dry martinis and the sexual politics of football weekends, but here the prevailing tone is more regretful, often elegiac. What's most powerful is what's left unspoken, whether it is Claire's artfully deflecting Nick's probing questions or a shared moment between Claire and Russell that ends in a handclasp that somehow sums up all that can -- and cannot -- be said between them. The world is changing, rapidly and irrevocably, and all they have to cope with are their elegant manners. Or, as Claire says, after so many melancholy truths have been privately admitted and Nick wonders how they can still all sit down at table, "People can know and not know, Nicky. And still get along famously."

This delicate piece, full of the kind of details found in a good short story, gets the sensitive handling it needs from the director, Thomas Kail, and an adept cast. Carolyn McCormick, to my mind one of the more underrated actresses around, puts her solid high comedy technique to work as Claire, who has been coasting on charm for years and intends to keep on doing it forever, if she can get away with it. She is particularly fine in the climactic encounter with Nick, when she finally reveals the much more complex woman underneath the smiles and bright remarks. Peter Scolari's Russell is the kind of stolid, unimaginative man who is convinced that his little world is an earthly paradise and brooks no contradiction; he is especially touching when facing up to the mess he has helped to make of Peggy's life. Andrew Keenan-Bolger neatly conveys Nick's growing unease as well as the hormonal torment of the college-age male. Ismenia Mendes is a real find as Peggy, who knows more than she says, and is forced to make a terrible admission to Russell. Molly Nordin is fine as Betsy, Nick's Jewish girlfriend, whose outspoken and judgmental manner puts Russell on edge, but the part is awkwardly written. The one false scene features Betsy urging Nick to read Hamlet's big scene with Ophelia in front of Claire to see if she shows signs of guilt, a plan that is abruptly terminated when Claire shows up and refuses to take the bait.

Kail has also overseen a production design that is both economical and evocative. The play's title is a key to the design. Rachel Hauck's set consists of a few pieces of furniture that can be rearranged to suggest porches, boats, and woodlands, among other locations. (A shelf containing such items as a period radio and phone add a touch of flavor.) The upstage shutters open to cue the lovely array of day- and nighttime looks created by the lighting designer, Betsy Adams. Claudia Brown's costumes capture the timeless, casual Brooks Brothers look of the characters' wardrobes. Bart Fasbender's sound design blends evocative period pop tune selections, such as "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling," from High Noon, and the Rosemary Clooney novelty classic "Come on-a My House," with such effects as birdsong and the rush of waves on the lake.

Family Furniture is a steadily absorbing tale that builds to an honestly touching finale that reveals the characters to be foolish and courageous in equal degrees. In the final scene, we learn how Nick and Peggy's romantic lives have turned out, but many crucial details are omitted. We also know, sadly, that the future very possibly holds little to gladden Russell and Claire. Still, as long as they can gather around a table and make pleasant conversation, grace is never absent.--David Barbour