Theatre in Review: A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes

	Heather Alicia Simms, Nina Hellman, Ben Williams, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Brooke Ishibashi. Pheoto: Heather Phelps Lipton

I like Kate Benson's mind, and if you've ever unwillingly attended a family event -- in other words, if you belong to the human race -- chances are you will, too. In A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (a New Georges production at Women's Project), she manages the seemingly impossible task of creating a freshly observed comedy about a misbegotten Thanksgiving gathering. Clearly aware that we are drastically oversupplied with hand-wringing dramas and cutesy comedies about dysfunctional clans, she envisions a troubled holiday dinner as a spectator sport.

Thus Sara C. Walsh's set is a kind of gymnasium with a perch on the second level where two announcers provide running commentary. The cast members move in stylized fashion, their interactions resembling the kind of offensive/defensive plays you find on the basketball court. For example, there is a tense discussion among three middle-aged sisters -- weirdly named Cheesecake, Cherry Pie, and Trifle -- over a single crucial question: Will everyone fit at the dinner table? (An announcer remarks, meaningfully, that nobody wants a repeat of "the Gravy Boat Episode of 1979," adding, "The wallpaper was never the same again.") As the sibling's negotiations become increasingly fraught, he notes, "It doesn't make things easier that the entire team suffers from OCD." Finally, Cherry Pie, a woman of infinite resources, announces, "I'll just go make a leaf. I'll just go cut one right now. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

And so it goes, with each new relative bringing new psychological baggage to unpack -- they include twins accompanied by their dogs and disapproving spouses; a trio of husbands named Ed, Fred, and Ned; and the Republican and his wife, the family's political outliers, along with a horde of nine babies who are stashed in a guest room and left, hopefully, to nap. The standout characters include Gumbo, Cherry Pie's adult daughter, whose is equally notorious for being both divorced and a key player in "The Year of the Fumble," which led to "an accidental vegetarian holiday," and SnapDragon, the family's take-no-prisoners matriarch, who, despite her blindness, rules over the kitchen with an iron fist. Observing Cheesecake at work, she says, in her best prophet-of-doom voice, "If you're wrong, the gravy will be ruined. And we'll sit at dinner and we'll know the gravy didn't turn out." Suffice to say that Cheesecake is infantilized on the spot.

Meanwhile, the announcers provide plenty of amusing color commentary of the sort more often heard on ESPN. Praising Cheesecake's command of her domain, one says she "could have run a small Latin American protectorate. She is org-an-nized!" When a marital dispute breaks out, we are told, "And it's Republican's turn to try The Abject Expression of Contrition. But no! He's going to try for the Denial of Reality." Cheesecake's choice of a pair of #12 forks for the task of turning the turkey in the oven is the cause of intensive analysis. The tiniest actions unleash more bursts of sturm und drang -- all for a dinner that, we are told, lasts twenty minutes.

Faced with a script that, on paper, must have looked like an absolute nightmare to stage, the director, Lee Sunday Evans, puts the cast through their complicated paces with remarkable skill, making everything look easy. Brooke Ishibashi, her lip forever trembling with suppressed tears, is a riotously embattled hostess as Cheesecake, and she is well matched with Heather Alicia Simms as the operatic Cherry Pie and Nina Hellman as the ruthlessly determined Trifle. (In a funny nod to the play's non-traditional casting -- Ishibashi is Asian, Simms is black, and Hellman is white -- an announcers says, "Notice how strong the family resemblance is between the three.") Mia Katigbak's SnapDragon is just this side of Medea, and Gerry Bamman makes a fine cohort as her equally sour spouse. As Gumbo, Kristine Haruna Lee charms even as she takes each new indignity on the chin. Ben Williams and Hubert Point-Du Jour spar pricelessly as the commentators. (When Williams smugly pronounces that there is nothing worse than a dry turkey, Point-Du Jour irritably replies that there are indeed several things, include rape and genocide.) Jessica Almasy and Christian Felix each leap effortlessly among five roles apiece, sometimes switching roles from line to line.

Walsh's set is the star of the physical production -- it also accomplishes a little coup de théâtre during the eerie final scene -- but Barbara Samuels' lighting and Brandon Wolcott's sound design -- including flawless mic work for the announcers -- are also fine. Kathleen Doyle dresses the family appropriately, but I wonder why, in a play that is set in the present, the announcers sport three-piece suits that could have come from Howard Cosell's closet.

Perhaps knowing that her conceit has its limits, Benson keeps the running time to a blessedly brief 75 minutes. Even so, she blatantly switches gears with a sequence that details a bloody encounter with all-devouring babies, followed by a brief, but equally macabre, coda involving SnapDragon and her husband. If they fit awkwardly with all that has come before, they are nevertheless written with considerable vigor. This is apparently the first full professional production for Benson, who heretofore has been an actress. She should have very little trouble getting her plays done from now on. She is clearly a find.--David Barbour