BWW Reviews: Stunning AFTERMATH Reopens @ Matrix Theatre

AfterMath
by Elliot Shoenman
directed by Mark L. Taylor
Matrix Theatre
through June 26

Writer Elliot Shoenman's book Nobody's Business depicts the pain felt by a family whose father committed suicide. It was his very own father. Now in his stage play entitled AfterMath in a return engagement at the Matrix Theatre, Shoenman returns to the topic of suicide showing in great emotional detail the hurt experienced by the victim's wife, her two children and a close male friend. What results is theatre at its very best, a real, raw, up-close look at a tortured family. Shoenman realizes quite wisely, however, that there is laughter through tears and incorporates ample comic exchanges.

As in life, the most dramatic events oddly seem funny, and one laughs to ease the pain. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows the ups and downs of grief, and how small details change drastically. An event or possession may look completely different from the way it looked before the tragedy. Take, for example, the father's car, wreaking of cigar smoke. What Julie always hated, she now refuses to let go of, if only to keep his memory alive.

As to the basics, Julie (Annie Potts) must try to help her two grown children - older daughter Natalie, from a previous marriage (Meredith Bishop) and younger college aged son Eric (Daniel Taylor) come to terms with their loss. A New York converted Jew, Julie is outspoken to a fault and understandably devastated by the fact that her husband left a 14 word suicide note in which he never said "I'm sorry" or "I love you", merely "I can't take this anymore. Take care of the kids and sell the car". He jumped into the Hudson River, his body resurfacing two weeks later. When the play begins, Julie is confronting her loss and trying to deal with Eric, who wants to leave home and Natalie, a successful meteorologist, who we soon see is an unhappy woman who never felt enough love from her mother. Chuck (Michael Mantell) is on hand to help Julie with her expenses until the insurance policy pays off, but the two kids do not like him hanging around, opening up possibilities for their mother that interfere with their father's memory. In fact, both are at odds with each other and with their mother for just about everything she says or does. It's not a pretty picture but throughout the process of healing they somehow find a way to stick it through and move forward.

Potts is mesmerizing as the wife, clawing and snarling her way along like a wounded animal. When she discovers just how much Natalie helped her husband find himself without her knowledge, her heartbreak only increases. How could he have left his wife in the dark, not including her in his problems? Her reactions are gut-wrenching and the confrontations, verbal assaults between the three, which are brilliantly choreographed and executed, frequently overlap as in life reverberating as discordant musical sounds yet blending together and finding a strange harmony. Taylor's direction in these moments and throughout the piece is impeccable. Taylor, Bishop and Mantell are all equally adept at expressing their individual feelings, and along with Potts, offer astounding work. A good example of humor clashing against sorrow is a quick clumsy tumble in the sheets between Julie and Chuck that never consummates. Whilst hastily trying to find a condom in her son's drawer, to her horror she unexpectedly comes across her husband's missing wallet. Light and heavy moments side by side.

This is by far one of the best plays of this theatrical season. Whether or not you have been through a suicide, you will still see glaring parallels of dysfunction and emotion connecting your own family issues. Great stuff: great writing, direction and acting not to be missed!