By J.E.Ballantyne Jr.
The 101st year of the Youngstown Playhouse finds it opening an additional theater in the center of downtown.
It’s in the space once occupied by the Oakland Center for the Arts, on the third floor of the Morley Building. For those who remember the space, Friday evening’s opening night performance was a trip down memory lane.
For those who were new to the “old” space, it was a fresh look at an expanding community staple.
To inaugurate its new theater, the Playhouse has pulled a rather obscure show out of its bag of tricks. “The Lyons,” by Nicky Silver, is a dark, but in many cases humorous, look at a family that is dysfunctional with a huge capital “D.”
The key to this production is director Connor Bezeredi’s impeccable casting.
With the characters having to tear each other apart in a cuttingly humorous fashion, this can be a tough show to pull off. Maintaining the subtext for each attack is critical in conveying the misery that each character both lives in and creates.
It’s a captivating piece. While the family patriarch is in the hospital dying, his family members are gathered around, but not to cheer him. Instead, they are prattling on about their own insecurities and firing salvos at each other.
Leading the way is Playhouse audience favorite Molly Galano as Rita Lyon, the wife and mother.
Rita’s last name is really appropriate to the type of person she is. She is a lioness
to be sure, with a lot of growl and a fierce bite.
Rita is the domineering self-centered head of this mixed up household who holds sway over everyone. Her lust for pointing blame and hurling sharp darts at everyone is only exceeded by her nonstop gift of gab. This family has never communicated, because they couldn’t. Rita wouldn’t let them.
Galano is as sharp as 10 tacks all coming at you at once – from railing about redoing the living room once dear hubby expires, to attacks on her own children for their and their families shortcomings. Galano is a master at this type of character but she also shows Rita’s inner self at different moments when the audience discovers her vulnerabilities.
As audience is filing in prior to the show, both Rita and dying husband Ben are on stage – him in bed, her sitting in a vigil kind of state. Neither speaks but their faces express an entire universe of unspoken emotions and thoughts.
Terry Shears, another Playhouse favorite, plays dying patriarch Ben. As caustic and sharp as Rita is, Ben can handle himself equally well in self defense – he’s had to for years. With profanity after profanity, which Rita hates, he continually stirs the pot sending Rita into fits of retaliation – mostly humorously mind you. Shears is the perfect foil to Galano’s Rita. The two pair well and when the guns start firing it is anybody’s guess as to who has the upper hand.
Ben is dying but Rita tells him to look on the positive side. The only positive side would be that once he goes, he no longer has to put up with Rita. He will be free of his fork-tongued wife for eternity.
Shears has his own brand of wickedness that he bestows on Ben. At times, Ben bests Rita – especially when it comes to his son, Curtis, who he claims he never liked anyway. But just as Rita has her quieter moments, so does Ben. The only difference is that Ben’s are more in a reflective and sentimental sense than Rita’s. Shears really grabs your heart in those scenes.
Their son, Curtis, played by Eric McCrea, is a gay short-story writer. That right there gives Ben all the ammo he needs to torment him at every turn. But of all of the family members, Curtis seems to be the only one that can at least seem unfazed by most of it. But once it builds up, we see the dam begin to break.
McCrea is comfortable in the role and handles the attacks from the rest of the family in a convincingly even temper. The biggest problem Ben seems to have with him is that Curtis isn’t his real name. He was named after Ben’s father, a man that Ben obviously worshipped. The name change has always been a big sticking point for Ben.
As the show moves along the audience learns more about Curtis. McCrea skill- fully crafts the many nuances of the character that later surface.
Jeanine Rees navigates the many sides of their daughter, Lisa.
Lisa has many problems on her plate, from being an alcoholic to her failed marriage. She currently lacks having someone special in her life – much to the dismay of Rita, who intends to fix it.
Rees is always an energetic element in any production in which she appears, and this production is no exception. She hands out the dramatic side of Lisa not in spoonfuls but in shovelfuls. Everything in her life is a drama of some sort. She has a particularly fun scene later in the show after pulling a bottle of booze out of her purse. Rees makes the most of every second of that.
But Lisa is easily angered by her mother’s abrasive comments, which makes the lighter drama a sobering defense of both herself and her own family. As with the other characters, Lisa also has a quieter softer side – which Rees handles with care.
Christine Duster, in her first appearance at the Playhouse, plays Ben’s nurse in the hospital. Dutiful and professional, she takes care of Ben as best she can but she doesn’t shy away from dealing with trouble if she has to. Even here, we see a char- acter change later in the show and another side to this character. Duster handles the role well and is actually a lighter character in the midst of the fire all around her.
Because Curtis is in search for a new apartment, he looks at an empty one with real estate agent Brian, played by Donovan Rubante. This is a small role for Rubante. He only gets one scene but shows his dimension as an actor in it. Brian goes through many transitions in this scene and Rubante is on top of each one with a seamless blend from one mood to another.
Bezeredi has put a real winner on stage at the new Playhouse Downtown, as the venue is called. It is hard, it is raw, but it is also very funny. Yes, it deals with death but the art of Silver’s writing and Bezeredi’s sharp and intelligent directing bring it all together.
Love has many sides, as we see in various Lyon family members’ thoughts. It isn’t always Valentines Day. Dark and somber productions can be dealt with humorously, in the same way that deceased people can be remembered with light and humorous anecdotes and memories.
John Pecano’s set design is simple but effective and makes for easy and swift scene changes on the new stage. It may not be elaborate but it does pull the audience into the action.
You will certainly find yourself laughing more than you would think with this show. The writing is sharp, the actor’s deliveries are quick and it may touch on a few emotions.
And finally, it is great to have the Playhouse in downtown Youngstown. But leave the kids at home; this is adult entertainment with powerful language and situations.
“The Lyons” will continue March 21, 27 and 28 at 7:30 p.m.; and March 22 and 29 at 2:30 p.m.
Pictured at top: Jeanine Rees, Molly Galano, Terry Shears and Eric McCrea star in the Playhouse’s production of “The Lyons.”