Rose (Brenda Wehle, left) advises her daughter Lucy (Charlotte Bydwell) about dancing in Richard Nelson’s The Michaels at the Public Theater.
Like The Apple Family Plays and The Gabriels, Richard Nelson’s new play, The Michaels, focuses on a family in Rhinebeck, N.Y., a destination that has become for this playwright what Idaho is for the dramatist Samuel D. Hunter. In Rhinebeck, Nelson finds a microcosm of American life, although his primary structural models are clearly the plays of Anton Chekhov. Nelson has had a hand in translating three plays by the Russian master, and Chekhov’s influence is evident in the quotidian concerns of the earlier families as well as this one: it’s the first in a third cycle.
The action takes place in the kitchen of a home owned by matriarch Rose Michael (Brenda Wehle), a semiretired choreographer. There, Kate Harris (Maryann Plunkett), Rose’s new romance, is preparing dinner for the Michael family. They include Rose’s daughter, Lucy (Charlotte Bydwell), and niece, May (Matilda Sakamoto); Rose’s ex-husband David (Jay O. Sanders), who is an arts manager and producer; and his wife, Sally (Rita Wolf). Also present is Irenie Walker (Haviland Morris), a former performer with Rose’s company. The subtitle Conversations During Difficult Times refers not only to the Trump era, but to a family crisis: Rose has terminal cancer.
Lucy dances for her mother (right) and Kate (Maryann Plunkett). Photographs by Joan Marcus.
As with the earlier series, Nelson, who directs, has emphasized naturalism, so that the actors give no evidence of projecting to an audience; rather the effect is that the audience is eavesdropping. This has sometimes been an annoyance in the past, but here sound designer Scott Lehrer has managed to make it work. (There is nonetheless a warning sign about this approach in the lobby, as a prompt to rent a headset.)
As implied by the names Apple, Michael, and Gabriel, these Rhinebeck families are wholesome, decent, and generous—on the side of the angels. Their politics are liberal, and they appreciate the arts. Ex-spouses have stayed friends. The first cousins, Lucy and May, are both dancers who have been working on learning the choreography to three of Rose’s dances.
Rose, meanwhile, is the real focus of the gathering. She has been offered a major choreography job and has forthrightly told the producer that she is sick. The result is that a counteroffer to the commission has been made, though she didn’t intend to provoke the suspension of the original, ambitious work, which she has already devoted three months to. “I thought I was being responsible,” she laments. “I wasn’t asking to be fired.”
As Rose, the lean, tall Wehle shows both the character’s crankiness and her stern, controlling side; on occasion, too, Rose breaks down, or she needs to lie down and rest, which gives the other characters a chance to chew over things. Nelson provides a lot of chitchat about third parties who are not present, as well as readings of journals and letters to one another (who does that nowadays?), narrations of past events, and an examination of photographs that the actors describe:
Rose: Look at this, Sally.
David: In his station wagon… I got a ride in that once [other photos]… Rose.
Rose: I didn’t know we had these. You have kept them.
David: I did. I gave them to Lucy for your display… She knew nothing about them.
Irenie: What are they: What is that?
David: You don’t know.
Bydwell shows her cousin May (Matilda Sakamoto) family memorabilia.
Nelson has enlivened the sometimes banal talk with dancing by the cousins. Rose demands to see them—performed in the limited kitchen area. It’s dubious that a professional choreographer would insist on an inappropriate space to see and judge the performance of family members, or that they would, knowing her demanding professionalism, agree. But the modern dances, performed with aplomb by Bydwell and Sakamoto, add much-needed movement to the low-key production.
Sanders and Plunkett, who have traveled the road of Nelson’s earlier cycles, are superb and comfortable in the world he has created (the rustic, appealing set is by Jason Ardizzone-West). Plunkett literally prepares and cooks a quiche in the oven. Even as she putters, she’s intensely alive. Sanders is a solid presence, although he has an awkward speech to launch the play and remind the audience to have their cell phones off. All the performances are skillfully detailed in the manner of Chekhov, but the low-key action leaves one unsatisfied. There are also pressing issues involving Kate and Rose that go unresolved—until the next installment. The ultimate effect of listening in at the Michaels’ home is of being invited to a dinner party where all the talk is about people you don’t know, and you don’t get the dinner. Whether you’re left hungry for more or just hungry is an open question.
Richard Nelson’s The Michaels runs through Dec. 1 at the Public Theater (425 Lafayette St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; matinees are at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday (except Nov. 20), Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, visit publictheater.org.
