Review: RULES FOR LIVING at Round House Theatre

It doesn't matter whether playwright Sam Holcroft craftily planted the song on the last page of Rules for Living or director Ryan Rilette wisely chose it for curtain call music; “You Always Hurt the One You Love”* puts the perfect button on this excellent production of a play in the, um, holiday spirit(s). (*It sounded like the classic Mills Brothers recording—hard to hear due to substantial audience ovation.) Rules for Living proves that all families who play at happy families when they gather will inevitably be unhappy in their own way. But, other than that, there's a lot to entertain an audience and make them laugh; if Long Day's Journey into Night had a baby with Noises Off, it would be Rules for Living.

Matthew (Will Conrad) brings his girlfriend Carrie (Dani Stoller) to the family Christmas dinner at his parents' home. His mom, Deborah, (Naomi Jacobson) has a spreadsheet of chores so that everyone knows his/her place in sharing the table-setting-tree-decorating-carrot-prepping, and all's well as long as you know how to load the dishwasher and which scraper to use on the carrots. On top of her usual roost-ruling, Deborah's dealing with the recent hospitalization of husband Francis (John Lescault). And older son Adam (Jonathan Feuer) with wife Nicole (Dina Thomas) are likewise preoccupied with the health of their teenage daughter. All the characters hurt the ones they love.

Holcroft makes clever use of projections above Jimmy Stubbs' spacious and detailed set. At first, they seem to be meta-text, annotating characters' traits and habits; and that was initially annoying because audiences are savvy enough to figure such things out without title cards (Delaney Bray's well-executed projections do resemble the century-old silent movie tools for providing dialogue.) But as the plots thicken and the characters devolve, the projections change into more Greek chorus than cues for audience to laugh. The device winds up being helpful and funny in its own right instead of superfluous.

Thomas' Nicole becomes very convincingly sloshed as her marital and parental distress increases. Being drunk onstage is quite simply very difficult and can lead to caricature and mannered acting—but not here, not Thomas. Likewise, being a control freak can be just as challenging, but not for Jacobson who somehow (magic?) makes Deborah seem (the horror) natural. As Carrie, Stoller must grow from a hyper, near bimbotic over-pleaser to a more independent and sensible woman; when Carrie slams the door on the farcical people she's been visiting, Stoller does it like a 21st century Nora, hitting the road. There is no catchy description for the work Feuer puts in; Adam wanted to be a ballplayer but got pressured by Francis to go into law, so he's miserable in a bush league law firm. His resulting neuroses manifest in Tourette's-like vocal and verbal false ways of speaking. Feuer goes through a veritable curriculum of accents and voices and references and imitations because Adam can no longer genuinely communicate; it's masterly and great fun to watch.

Not fun to watch is Lescault's generous performance of an impaired patriarch. For those who have family members who have suffered paralysis, this may not be an evening's seasonal entertainment because Francis is mocked, and his predicament becomes fair game for farce. This is not a negative: just a note about content similar to what movies put in the box with the R or what PBS puts on a black screen in white letters when real life is about to turn up in a documentary. But for hilarity and a refreshing, farcical review of why there's no place like home for the holidays, Rules for Living provides for faithful friends who have to muddle through somehow. The 2.5 hour show romps through January 4.