Relationships Resisted and Restored Through The Family Serenade

James Jennings’ Moving Tale of Hearts and Home Comes to the American Theater of Actors

No matter how elegant and amenity-laden it might be, can a Rest Home ever be a real home? Josie (Valerie O’ Hara) and her husband Daniel (Thomas Kane) have decided it cannot, since their children arranged for their stay in a pleasant but lonely retirement home 100 miles away from their loved ones. They feel shunted off and isolated; even time has no meaning as they can’t be sure if they’ve been there for months or years. “How did we get here?” says Thomas in haunting moment. He refers to their living arrangements as a “hotel,” but doesn’t remember making the reservations.

They begin in chairs facing opposite from each other, a symbol of their detachment from even each other. Daniel, a lifelong writer, finds that he is completely blocked, drained of his creativity in a reality that has become meaningless. “I was once somebody, now I’m nothing,” he laments. He rages about politics because there’s nothing else to feel anything about. Josie sighs and wonders when the grandkids are going to call, and why they have been denied a consistent presence in their lives. They tease each other gently to break the monotony. But otherwise, all they have are their memories, and even many of those are slipping away through the cruelty of age and time.

The adult children who put them in this situation, Rodney (Travis Bergmann) and Silvia (Allison Landi) finally come for a visit, but there is an emotional distance between the family members much wider and more insurmountable than the physical one that has separated them. Rodney and Silvia are genuinely shocked by their parents’ unhappiness, and to their credit want to do something about it, but Daniel is bitter from being cast aside in the first place. He is even finding himself bullied by a fellow resident and contemplating brass knuckles to fight him off. He doesn’t want to stay, but he doesn’t want to be a burden to a family who he thinks doesn’t want him, leaving him feeling trapped in his own life. Josie tries to make peace with their situation but conveys the deep misery of someone resigned to loneliness and ennui. One finds themselves rooting for them all to find a way back to each other.

The four actors give resonant and true-to-life performances, perfectly embodying the mixed feelings of love, loneliness and betrayal. All the members of the family are confused and horrified at the place they’ve found themselves in, and they are desperate to re-connect and find a place in the world and in each other’s lives. They start telling stories of long ago in an attempt to be close and connected again.

James Jennings’ writing has a poignancy that reaches into the heart of the audience and leaves them with a lot to ponder, about life, family, love, and the elusiveness of happiness. His direction serves the material perfectly, as the four members of the family try to connect with words while their body language suggests they may now all be strangers. A wonderful added touch is the framed photographs on the fireplace of the real-life actors as children, and a box of memories, shoved in a corner, of the happier times they are desperate to reclaim.

The Family Serenade runs through December 2 on the Beckmann stage at the American Theater of Actors.