The New York Times-20080124-If They-ve Changed the Locks- Is It Really Home-- -Review-
Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080124
If They've Changed the Locks, Is It Really Home?; [Review]
Full Text (427 words)When a character who is talked about but never seen is the most interesting figure in a drama, is that a problem? It is for The Main(e) Play, Chad Beckim's punning title for his quasi-autobiographical riff on family that opened on Wednesday night at the Lion Theater.
We've been told that home is where you can't go again (Thomas Wolfe), but if you do, they have to take you in (Robert Frost). For Mr. Beckim's protagonist, Shane, like his author a Maine native who migrated to New York and show business, both observations are true. Home has changed too much; Mom and Dad's split still hurts, years after the fact; Shane's bedroom isn't even his anymore. And though his brother, Roy, is glad he's back for another holiday -- Thanksgiving -- the house locks were changed, and Shane had to get an old girlfriend to break a window so he could get in.
Something else he doesn't like about the house is the unseen character who lives there, Jay, Roy's 7-year-old son, a trigger-happy future felon, with his BB gun, deafening drum set and lengthening disciplinary record at school. To Roy, who pours concrete for a weary living and has broken up with Jay's mother, the child is the bridge between past and future, the hope of each new day: I'm tryin ta establish something fah him, Roy tells Shane. Like what we usta have. Tradition. To Shane, Jay is a symbol of how life is chaos unless it's controlled.
Mr. Beckim loves language, and Roy, his pal Rooster, and Shane's ex, Jess, use an earthy Maine vernacular that sounds authentic. Similarly, in his first produced play, ... A Matter of Choice in 2005, also presented by Mr. Beckim's company, Partial Comfort Productions, and set in Spanish Harlem, the conversations among the characters were at times witty fugues of unprintable words.
In his new work, directed by Robert O'Hara, there are some laughs and an excellent performance by Michael Gladis as the tobacco-juice-spitting, marijuana-inhaling Roy. But the play suffers from stereotypical characterizations, and a miscast Alexander Alioto as Shane never convinces. Shane may dislike Jay, but he is equally erratic: Ahhh ... Home. Nice to be home. And a few minutes later: This -- ugh -- whatever -- just -- nothing changes here.
The Main(e) Play continues through Feb. 9 at the Lion Theater, Theater Row, 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton, (212) 279-4200.
[Illustration]PHOTO: Michael Gladis, left, and Alexander Alioto as brothers in The Main(e) Play, by Chad Beckim, at the Lion Theater. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RYAN JENSEN)