GLENS FALLS- “Home” is a musical about loss. It’s about the loss of a mother and the loss of a childhood. The musical, which is being given its world premiere at Adirondack Theatre Festival in Glens Falls, is a superb production of very disturbing material. At its heart it questions if unworthy parents are entitled to love from those whom they unconsciously harmed. In other worlds, it questions the essence of love.
Katherine returns to her home in Texas after a long absence to discover her mother, Miriam, has Stage Four breast cancer and is about to die. She originally feels that it will be impossible to spend a week with her alcoholic, emotionally cruel mother. She spends more than a month and when Miriam passes, she is deeply affected at her death.
The change that takes place between them is not a matter of mutual reconciliation Miriam is the same emotionally distant woman who rejects changing her ways. Because Miriam is still volatile and depreciating of her daughter, it is not easy to understand why Katherine cares about her mother’s well-being and assumes the role of caregiver.
At play’s end, you have to wonder if her grief is about the instinctive need to love a parent (or a sibling), even if that person is unlovable. Is Katherine mourning the death of Miriam or simply the loss of a mother? This 90-minute exploration of love is oddly touching as it makes you evaluate the bond between parent and child and why that bond supersedes logic and memory.
In “Home” the memories are painful. Katherine sees herself at age 13 (Katie) and as a senior in college (Kat). Miriam crushes the dreams of young Katie, and disappoint Kat at the most important moments of her life. Throughout Katherine’s childhood she was held hostage by Miriam’s alcoholism, her hypochondria and her threats of suicide.
When Miriam discovers a manuscript that Kat wrote about her home life she vilifies, torments and attacks her daughter as a terrible person who could write so accurately about her home life. The fight prompts Kat to leave home, not to return for more than a decade.
During the visit we find out Miriam knows nothing about her 40-year old daughter’s life. Not her profession, her love life or where she lives. We do learn that Katherine has stopped writing because she cannot handle rejection and she avoids a commitment to a kind and loving man. Miriam has done her job well.
It would be an easy matter to dismiss Miriam as a monster, but thanks to terrific performances by Nancy Slusser as Miriam and Leenya Rideout as Katherine it is not that simple. Book writer Christy Hall rarely tries to make Miriam a sympathetic character and Slusser plays her as an unthinking woman who does cruel things because she is a self-involved woman with weaknesses. Slusser suggests she does care about her daughter, but not as much as she cares about herself. The pathetic nature of this weak woman is strangely affecting.
Rideout creates a strong, self-aware woman who has made a life for herself. She does not come home looking for reconciliation. That she finds the ability to forgive and even love a woman who is undeserving of forgiveness or love makes her a better person. There is hope at play’s end that Katherine has healed herself.
This is a four-person play and Sydney Shuck as Katie and young Alison Cusano as Kat make valuable contributions. There are only nine songs and two reprises in the show but the music by Scott Alan is a fifth person in the show. They add emotion and sensitivity where dialogue would fail. A single piano played by Ryan Touhey is perfect for the delicate material. Indeed, often a single chord acts as a witness to what happens on stage.
Chad Rabinovitz also relies on simplicity in his direction to make the memories in the play clear and unobtrusive. He trusts the audience to know what is going on. He shows the same trust of the audience as ATF’s artistic director who put this work on the schedule. It is a painful play to watch, and even tougher to embrace, but in its own way it is memorable theater.
“Home” at Adirondack Theatre Festival, 207 Glen St., Glens Falls Through Saturday Tickets and information 480-4878, atfestival.org
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record
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