Out Front On Main

Processing grief is different for every individual who has lost a loved one and, unfortunately, there are no road maps to help you navigate the peaks and valleys that you are sure to go through. But, as every grieving soul can attest, it most certainly gets worse before it gets better – which is of little comfort, to be sure, but having that small kernel of wisdom might someday help you on your own journey of grief.

Grief is such a personal journey that it is unique for every person who experiences it, although conventional wisdom tells us that it’s easier for a child to lose a parent than it is for a parent to lose a child.  That makes a lot of sense, given the very nature of the world we live in, and to watch two loving parents grapple in their ill-informed ways with their own stages of grief is a heart-wrenching and totally involving exercise – and that is the story that unfolds before you in Rabbit Hole, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire‘s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

That all-too-personal journey taken by two upper middle-class parents, grieving the accidental death of their four-year-old son, gives structure and form to Rabbit Hole, now onstage at Murfreesboro’s Out Front on Main theater in a compellingly acted and tautly directed production staged by George W. Manus Jr.  Thanks to the total commitment of Manus’ five-member ensemble of actors, Rabbit Hole is brought searingly to life, leavened with enough humor to make its impact all the more heartfelt, while affording audiences an opportunity to see a deeply personal story acted out on stage that one day ultimately might have a greater impact on their collective psyche.

At curtain we are introduced to Becca Corbett (Leah Fincher, a young woman whom we soon discover has lost her four-year-old son Danny as the result of being hit by a car on their suburban New York street. Becca is listening to a story about a bar fight from her slightly wacky and irreverent sister Izzy (Meg Davis), which helps to set the tone for the relationship between the two sisters (older sister chides younger woman in an attempt to right her course) and helps reveal the personal pain both women have endured in the intervening eight months since Danny’s death. When Becca’s husband Howie (Justin Hand) comes home for dinner and attempts to set a romantic mood for his wife, we become privy to the schism that has developed between the two, each of whom is dealing with their son’s death in a different, if distinctly personal, way.

Becca, it seems, is trying to rid herself of anything that will remind her of Danny: the family dog Taz (who, although never seen, plays a vital role in the story) has been sent away to live with Becca’s mother Nat (Connie Bryant), who has been dealing with the heroin-related suicide death of her son some 11 years earlier; she’s packing up Danny’s clothes and toys for Goodwill; she refuses to talk to old friends, blaming them for the estrangement instead of acknowledging her own faults; and, perhaps more significantly, she has removed photos of Danny from public view.

Howie, on the other hand, revels in the memories of his son – in a brief prologue, he watches a video on his laptop of a shared outing with his beloved boy, assuaging his own feelings of guilt with the knowledge that his son lives on in his heart and in his very soul – and he chafes at Becca’s seemingly cold and heartless actions that seem determined to drive any semblance of familial order from their lives.

While the couple struggles, we are introduced to 17-year-old Jason Willette (played by David Bennett), the driver of the car that struck and killed Danny. Howie’s rage at Jason is palpable, belying his supposed ability to better deal with Danny’s death than is Becca, who seems to battle so mightily with her own mix demons. Yet, Becca seems drawn to the teenager, as if getting to know him will help her to better understand why she lost her son and to ascribe some sense of order to the jumble of emotions she now endures day-after-day.

If you have ever lost a loved one, whether as the result of an accident, a terminal illness, a quick and sudden death – whatever the cause may be – you cannot help but become personally involved in the story being told in Lindsay-Abaire’s thought-provoking play. The playwright very deftly reveals Becca and Howie’s story at an ideal pace, one in which audience members find themselves becoming caught up in its very genuine humanity. He also offers every grieving person a glimmer of hope: the possibility of parallel universes found within the infinite one in which we live, suggesting that somewhere there are other, happier versions of Howie, Becca and Jason, and where a still-living Danny thrives and grows.

Manus’ cast delivers a stunning performance of Lindsay-Abaire’s script, with Fincher’s noteworthy performance setting the standard for her fellow actors. Fincher’s Becca is not particularly likable – as written, she’s controlling and reserved – but the actress imbues the character with such warmth and takes us on a very credible journey, one that results in our thorough understanding of what compels Becca to do the things she does and which helps us to identify with her own personal journey of grief and acceptance.

Hand’s tightly wound Howie is a likable and sentimental character, whose openness makes him at first more accessible for the audience; frankly, you will identify with Howie in the play’s early-going far more easily and quickly than you will Becca. But Hand plays Howie’s barely controlled anger with an unsettling ease that renders your preconceived notions askew.

Bennett, as the high school senior who fears he may have been driving “33, 32″ in a 30-mile speed zone on the family’s street when he struck and killed Danny, delivers a finely etched, completely engaging performance. His Act One reading of a letter he writes to Becca is certain to touch your heart, while his second act face-to-face meeting with her is guaranteed to make you cry. His brief, but altogether vital, moments onstage with both Fincher and Hand, helps them both to deliver acting fireworks without resorting to histrionics or the overly dramatic actor’s bag of expected tricks.

Davis provides many of the play’s lighter moments, while effectively handling her character’s more dramatic scenes with depth and obvious range, proving herself capable of much more than just comic relief. Bryant’s performance as Becca and Izzy’s mother (who seems almost like a throwaway character in her first scene only to show her true worth in a later scene in Danny’s bedroom) is at once light-hearted and earthbound, capably bringing the character to life in a believable way, giving Nat a voice of reason that is essential for Becca to relate to and to hear.

Rabbit Hole. By David Linsday-Abaire. Directed by George W. Manus Jr. Presented by Out Front on Main, 1511 East Main Street, Murfreesboro. Through July 24. For details, visit the company’s website at www.outfrontonmain.com or call (615) 713-1757.

–by Jeffrey Ellis

Photo by Jessica Theiss