The play by Sharyn Rothstein is a world premiere but right now feels like a two-and-a-half-hour rough draft The goal, it seems, is to create a tense but tender domestic drama; the script's cover page dubs it "a family dramedy." But the various stylistic strands never find harmony. What we are left with is what feels like a two-and-a-half hour rough draft. Watch video
Sharyn Rothstein's "All the Days," now receiving its world premiere at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, is a play about family, faith, struggle, and loss, enveloped in a situation comedy replete with snappy one-liners and stock characters.
The goal, it seems, is to create a tense but tender domestic drama; the script's cover page dubs it "a family dramedy." But the various stylistic strands never find harmony. What we are left with is what feels like a two-and-a-half hour rough draft.
At the center of "All the Days" is a strained relationship between Miranda (Stephanie Janssen) -- a 38-year-old divorced, mother of 13-year-old Jared (Matthew Kuenne) -- and Miranda's mother, Ruth (Caroline Aaron), who is in her sixties, divorced, diabetic and cantankerous. Jared's bar mitzvah occasions a gathering of the entire family at Miranda's small Philadelphia apartment, where we also meet Ruth's ex-husband Del (Ron Orbach), who has recently been struck with the urge to rekindle the marriage fires with Ruth.
Add to this volatile mixture Ruth's sister Mo (Leslie Ayvazian), Miranda's boyfriend Stew (Justin Hagan), and herbalist Baptiste (Raphael Nash Thompson), with whom Miranda and Stew set up Ruth on a date, and we've got the raw material for nearly any dramatic situation.
The play, directed by the McCarter's longtime artistic director Emily Mann eagerly explores many available avenues: Ruth needs help but refuses to accept it; Del wants to change his childish ways but struggles to convince his family he is capable of doing so; resentment festers in Miranda because Stew did not go to her brother's funeral.
But that's just a partial list of the myriad conflicts thrown into the mix of this clouded play, the tone of which does not help in detangling its themes. The first act emphasizes laugh lines to such a degree that the screaming matches of act two struggle to achieve any emotional weight.
Rothstein seems most interested in Miranda and Ruth, the former a long-suffering mother and daughter pulled in many different directions, and the latter aging and ailing while shielding her vulnerability with acerbic humor. Blaser's performance gives us much to pity about Miranda's plight; she shows vividly Miranda's struggle to satisfy all the people in her life demanding attention. Aaron's Ruth is less compelling. She spends so much of the play alienating those around her that she distances herself from the audience as well. And so much of her dialogue is given over to broad comedy that one almost expects to hear rim shots and laugh tracks in the background. (In the absence of both, Aaron provides frequent and repetitive hand and head motions to punctuate Ruth's jokes).
The evening's best performance is Ayvazian's Aunt Mo, so it is a shame the character is not asked to be much more than a chorus commenting on the play's primary conflicts. "All the Days" is a play full of ideas for drama of potentially great heart and depth, but we spend most of the play skating over a surface littered with underdeveloped humor and emotion.
All the Days
The McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton, through May 29
Tickets available online or by phone, 609-258-2787
Patrick Maley may be reached at patrickjmaley@gmail.com. Find him on Twitter @PatrickJMaley. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.