SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, March 7, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — It’s a strong season so far for Salt Lake City theater, and the winning streak continues with the newly formed Voodoo Theatre Company’s “Rabbit Hole.”
The David Lindsay-Abaire play, which opened March 3, runs through March 12 at the Alliance Theater in Trolley Square.
The show, which has had a handful of productions in Salt Lake City, premiered on Broadway in 2006 and was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Cynthia Nixon won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Becca in the New York production, and the play was nominated for several other Tony awards.
Voodoo Theatre production
The piece tells the story of Becca and Howie Corbett (Ali Lente and Aaron Ross), who have a picture perfect family life in the suburbs of New York until a random, tragic accident takes the life of their 4-year old son, Danny. Soon after, Becca’s younger sister Izzy (Courtney Whittier) announces that she is pregnant. As Becca and Howie struggle to navigate the grieving process, Becca’s mother, Nat (Nan Weber) tries circuitously to help them move forward, and Jason (Ethan Hernandez), the young driver who killed their son, attempts to heal by paying them a visit.
The theater company describes its mission as “striving to perform plays actors want to act in, and audiences want to see.” Their mission statement adds: “We aim to engage and enrich our community through thought-provoking, emotional, and thrilling produced plays.” And in this instance, they have certainly achieved that goal.
The cast is strong across the board, each character having a clear arc that demonstrates how different people deal with the gaping hole that is left in their life by a loss like this. Lente’s Becca attempts to move forward by being productive; baking, clearing away Danny’s possessions, taking care of visitors with a force that borders on pushy, but there’s clearly pain and rage simmering under the surface. She’s obsessed with order with a maelstrom on the inside.
Meanwhile, Howie, played by Ross, at first appears to be something of a milquetoast; patient, level-headed and quiet, obsessively watching home videos featuring their son, but we see as the play goes on that he’s holding on by a thread too. Together, Lente and Ross’ scenes are like a timid dance, where the characters sporadically seem to be coming together, only to be torn apart again and again. Both performances have a stripped-away simplicity and an unmistakable depth.
Meanwhile, Whittier’s Izzy and Weber’s Nat provide much of the play’s humor. And yes, there are laughs along the way, but they’re not forced or unnatural. They are there because life, and people, even in the midst of deep grief, are also weird and funny. Much of Nat’s dialogue seems rather delightfully offbeat (for example her ruminations on the “Kennedy curse” and Aristotle Onassis), so that when she delivers her final rumination on grief in the second act, it packs an ever bigger punch. Whittier also brings a nice vivacity with a side of eccentricity. Izzy is own her own journey now that she is pregnant, and it’s a delight to watch Whittier create Izzy’s arc from being irresponsible and irreverent to attempting to prepare for motherhood while not upsetting Becca too much.
Hernandez also gives an understated yet confident performance as Jason, the teen that hit Danny with his car by mistake; the child was chasing his dog who was chasing a squirrel. There is a striking scene between Becca and Jason in the second act, in which Jason attempts to explain what might have happened the day he hit the 4-year-old; he admits he might have been going two or three miles over the speed limit and asks that Becca relay this to Howie. Even though this seems important to him, what comes across is that he is trying to justify an incident that was quite simply, a terrible mistake.
Hernandez portrays Jason as an intriguing hybrid of adult and child himself, and echoing this, Becca steps into a motherly role with him; serving him a homemade lemon bar, and plying him with a glass of milk and questions about his graduation, prom and future plans. Jason does his best to answer her questions, and tragically, though this is not discussed in the scene, his responses provide a glimpse of what Danny’s future might have looked a little like if his young life had not been cut short.
The play is directed by Morgan Lee, who is an up-and-coming talent who recently completed her MFA in directing in London. She directs with a light touch, obviously giving her actors space to create and breathe, while also deftly navigating the verbal choreography between characters as they spin away then back toward each other.
The production values are simple but effective. The staging is absolutely straightforward: a kitchen table at stage right, a sofa in the center and Danny’s bedroom on stage left. There are numerous references to what a lovely house the couple live in and I’ve read a handful of reviews of other productions that refer to a fully built kitchen and a rotating stage; which perhaps in the Broadway production would have been apposite, but in this case, the set was just fine. The set and the lighting (by Emma Eugenia Belnap) were understated enough that all our focus was on the characters and their interplay.
I’ll close by saying that I think Voodoo Theatre Company is definitely one to watch. Given that this is just their second show, the work is all-around confident and cohesive, and the company has little touches such as a really nice program, website, and royal blue company merch that staff and some of the actors wore post-show that give the whole production a professional touch.
There are four more chances to see “Rabbit Hole”; on Friday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 11 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 12 at 6 p.m. The company will then be producing “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” by Celeste Lecesne, in June. One actor portrays every character in a small Jersey Shore town as he unravels the story of Leonard Pelkey, a tenaciously optimistic and flamboyant 14-year-old boy who goes missing.
For tickets and more information about “Rabbit Hole,” click here.
