Review: Forced RUTH AND THE SEA from Pacific Play Company Offers No Resolution

In Horton Foote's beautiful play "A Trip to Bountiful" we care about the journey because we care about Carrie and the characters around her. Unfortunately in Morgan Ludlow's new play "Ruth and the Sea", currently playing at Annex Theatre from Pacific Play Company, we have few chances to get to know or like Ruth and her family as we mostly just end up seeing them be bitter and snarky to each other. That coupled with some forced dialog and exposition and clunky story structure, and what amounts is a journey that I wish I hadn't taken.

In Ludlow's play aging Ruth (Ruth McRee) finds she has cancer and so gets it into her head that she must make a trip to see the ocean one last time and so she contracts her fresh out of rehab Grandson Noel (Geoff Finney) to drive her there. But her ex-husband John (David S. Klein) and her daughter-in-law Mona (Eleanor Moseley) chase after them for fear that she's not well enough for the trip, or because she took John's bank card. (One of those.)

As I said, these people are mean to each other from the first time we meet them so there's little chance that we can get to like any of them and therefore don't care about the journey. Ruth and John snipe at each other about money and constantly one up each other's insults, both of them refer to their daughter-in-law with a vaguely racist nickname and no one seems to want to help their only Grandson/Son as he can't seem to stay off heroin. And all of this is conveyed with predictable and hackneyed one liners and forced dialog and so it felt less like a beautiful journey and more like a bad Lifetime Original Movie. And it all ends with reaching the destination but not really resolving anything or finding any meaning or truth in why they were making the journey. They just get there.

Director Maureen Hawkins takes these people through the journey at a clunky and glacial pace. Granted that could be the script as there are so many unnecessary scenes in the show that seem to be there just so we can have another "moment", but the actors don't seem to be listening to each other just waiting for their next line and waiting for their next chance to pause and emote and that's on the director for not stopping it.

The cast all seem to be in different shows as no one's performance works with anyone else and there's very little here that feels real and honestly felt. Klein blusters about with exaggerated facial expressions and emotional outbursts that come from nowhere. On the other hand Moseley feels like she's keeping every ounce of her performance internal to the point that she seems not even there. Erin Ison as Noel's ex-girlfriend and addict Dolly Parton impersonator feels like such a tacked on character that I'm not sure what to feel about her performance. Finney manages to be likable enough but doesn't quite convey someone who just got out of a failed rehab. McRee has the lion's share of the work in the show and shows off some moments of honesty but even she falls into the trap of over doing it at times. In fact the most likable person in the show is Lori Lee Haener who brings in some much needed comic relief in multiple roles.

Character development, storytelling, dialog, direction, performance; the show just misses the mark on so many levels that it made it impossible to care about any of what was happening. And so with my three letter rating system I give "Ruth and the Sea" a bewildered and slightly irritated NAH. Sure they made this long journey filled with illness and family strife but I never understood why. And if I wanted fake people to be mean and snarky to each other for no reason then I would watch the Kardashians.

"Ruth and the Sea" from Pacific Play Company performs at Annex Theatre through December 19th. For tickets or information visit them online at www.pacificplaycompany.com.

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