There are two kinds of die hard New Yorkers.  Those who were born here and will never leave, and those who came here to escape small towns . . . and will never leave.  If you’re reading this, chances are you’re one of those two, and if you’re the latter then Barrier Island will remind you of home, but may also remind you how far from home you’ve come.

Small towns are really more like big families with everyone related to you either by blood, marriage, business, church, club or calamity.  There is both comfort and  consternation in  those ties that bind.  In one regard,  you know someone always has your back.  But in another way, someone always is on your back.  And depending on the kind of day you’ve had, that’s either a blessing or a curse.

In Barrier Island playwright David Stallings takes a microscope to a small Galveston, Texas town and delivers it to us through the eyes of two very different prodigal sons.  On the one side of the boomerang we have Trey (the fantastic Anthony Crep) who left town after a tragedy in a hurry and hasn’t been back since.  On the other side is prickly Laura (Jennifer Laine Williams) who comes back with an 11 year old son, Daniel (Frankie Seratch) and an almost too-perfect story about a husband who decided to stay back for a while.    Both are brought back to town  by family obligations in anticipation of Hurricane Ike.

For Laura and Trey, stepping back into town is as fraught with the stickiness of their respective histories as falling backwards into a vat of fly paper.

Not exactly awaiting their return, but seemingly never having left their appointed spots in the last decade, are the town locals with a little more dust on the sill but still spouting that small-town-small-mindedness that can sound so quaint to an urban ear until you realize they’re not joking.  That bigotry you’re hearing is heartfelt.  Under Cristina Alicea’s direction Stallings’ zingers melt like chocolate-coated Sour Patch Kids.  Only for an instance does that sweet southern accent soften the initial blow before you’re left with the acidity of the words burning your tongue.  These folks say what they think and they don’t apologize for it.

Big Nate (David L. Carson) has been running his bar out of Laura’s dad’s building with his wife  Susie (Alex Bond) for as long as any one can remember.  Perennially glued to one end of the bar is Bob (Stu Richel), curmudgeonly and cranky and living to insult the counterweight to his see-saw at the bar, a young woman named Cheryl (Carol Hickey).  Between these two anchors  other patrons include Carl (Mark Emerson) a man-child of indeterminate age who is slow witted but not too slow to toss back some beers and find himself a gal.

One generation down is Cheryl’s daughter Steph  (Anne Clare Gibbons-Brown) who is pinging around that bar (all 15 underage years of her) like a restless pinball that’s just been released; bored of small town life but too young to do anything about it.   Several years younger than Steph, and as much an outsider as his mom, little Daniel generally seems shaken by what he’s been brought into.  Fiercely protective of his mom, but unable to latch on to much else, Daniel serves as the audiences’ quiet but steady navigator through this town and its customs.

Stu Richel, Jennifer Laine Williams, David L. Carson and Alex Bond (photo credit: Antonio Minino)

And boy, are there customs here.  Nothing shows the town’s insistence on staunch observance of tradition as well as Susie’s tangling with the school board as she tries to convince them to use 1-800-Flowers for Homecoming instead of the local Patsy’s Florist.  Once we see that drama play out, it’s easier to understand how a town won’t let a man outlive his past (in the case of Trey), and still casts him as the bad boy who “did that thing and had to leave”.  It’s also easier to understand how business deals, such as the one between Laura’s father and big Nate, were created on a handshake.

Trouble can shake this town up and unsettle it like a snow-globe, and in the 2 hours you’ll spend in Barrier Island trouble rains down with as much ferocity as the impending Hurricane.  However, like a snow-globe, this is a contained world, where issues are handled from within in a way that makes sense to the parties involved, and outsiders (that would include you) don’t really need to understand, nor get involved, thank you very much.  This is Town business.  The Town will handle it.

Working alongside this story of small town ways is the bubbling romance between Laura and Trey.  Both were run out of town by their own demons and both feel a little awkward being back.  It’s hard to fit big ideas back into a small box, and it’s hard to take a step back and regress back into the human being you once were in the eyes of people who consider you family when you’re staring back with eyes that have seen more that you have words to explain.  And so, the two inside/outsiders find themselves drawn to each other.  The only trouble is, Laura has a wall around her heart that rivals the height of  any seawall, and perhaps this story isn’t so much about whether the seawall can protect Galveston and keep out Hurricane Ike . . .  but more about whether Laura’s defenses can protect her heart and keep out hurricane Trey.

Ultimately, Barrier Island is a glimpse into small town living that (if you’ve lived it) will make you nod in recognition and that will (if you’ve never experienced it) make you cock your head to the side in wonder. David Stallings has created such an honest, sometimes awful, sometimes heartwarming portrayal of what it means to come from a small town that it will either make you homesick  . . . or happy you were born in New York.

Carol Hickey and Anne Clare Gibbons-Brown (photo credit: Antonio Minino)

Strong acting from David L. Carson and Alex Bond bring Stallings words not just to life but right  into your lap; there are times when you feel like you’re just another patron at their bar – just another member of their family, and they’d as easily give you a beer or a hug as they would a menacing stare of warning should you step out of line.  Their chemistry together  is undeniable and there are moments between them that are so real  that you check the program to make sure they don’t share the same last name.  Same goes for Carol Hickey and Anne Clare Gibbons-Brown; the mother-daughter bond there is so powerful that you could envision them in any situation together, and you know they’d have the strength to pull through.

Carol Hickey as Cheryl brings tiny details to her performance that put a lump in your throat; she’s an exquisite force of nature who embodies this small town girl who is unwillingly put in a position of needing to define and defend a life that’s been the best one she was able to pull together, and Carol Hickey imbues her character with dignity as well as determination.

The set designed by Craig Napoliello (colored and shaded by the sound design of Martha Goode) is so spot-on that, upon entering the theatre, you have to make sure you head to the seats and not over to the tables, as the lure of a frosty cold one might make you forget that you’re actually in a theatre and not in a bar.

If you can’t get away this week but are looking to explore small town life for all its pride and peculiarity, then buy a ticket and take the short ride to the small town of Barrier Island.  You’ll come away with a feeling of having spent an evening getting to know a town, its people, and its ways.

~~~

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Where were you during the New York blackout? People still ask, even though the most recent one happened six years ago. But live through just one in New York City and you’ll understand why it’s such a bookmark in the story of your life here; in a city that never sleeps, that is always alive and jolted with energy – of the personal kind as much as the Con Ed kind – it’s eerie to see it all go dark, quite, and almost retro. Neighbors will gather on their stoops to share their stories, and perhaps their food (someone has to eat all the ice cream before it melts …) music or news sounds tinny as it comes to you from that old transistor radio you keep “for emergencies”, and all the distractions that fill up our days disappear in a snap. I sure remember where I was during the blackout …

New York City had two of them that stopped the city still – one in 1977 and one in 2003. Blackouts written by J. Anthony Roman and Directed by Jill DeArmon, is two acts connected by history and legacy, and divided by one tragic loss.

When we first come upon Eddy (Max Woertendyke) in 1977, he’s in his tighty whities painting a huge canvas which demands “Where Did It All Go?” in his small Hell’s Kitchen apartment which is decorated with other large works of his creation. Inspired by his life and fueled by a little cocaine, his artwork proclaims things like “TRUTH” and “All You Need Have Is Love”. This is a guy with a lot to say, and a huge need to express himself. When his wife, Sarah (Jamie Klassel) comes home, and the two coo over their infant son James it’s the picture of domestic (if a bit bohemian) bliss. Their passion for each other is as true as Eddy’s passion for his art, and their love is made all the more sweeter as it’s juxtaposed next to the screaming hurricane of insults that wafts through the windows – their friends and neighbors are fighting again.

We meet this feuding couple soon enough as they use the roof as a hallway and the window as a doorway. Soon we’re treated to Phil (Zachary Fletcher) and Janine (Lisa Snyder) who enter and exit like a whirlwind, fighting about money and responsibility and who should be what role, and how getting married means becoming a grownup. Frankly, you can feel Eddy and Sarah’s relief that they are so different than their sadly disconnected friends.

Writer J. Anthony Roman does an excellent job of bringing the 70s to life in these four characters, and he also does justice to the lives of his characters by giving the story of these two couples to us in an honesty, unforced progression. Director Jill DeArmon complements the story perfectly with just the right touches; when Eddy’s brass ring slips from his grasp (even as Phil gets his act, and his marriage, together) and he struggles to deal with his inner demons as well as his growing cocaine addiction it’s as real as watching a sunny day become overcast and then explode into a brutal nor’easter. And therein lies the gem in Blackouts – this isn’t a story about the lights going out in a city. This is the story about the lights going out in a life.

Twenty six years later, but really just the span of an intermission, it’s now 2003 and sweet baby James (again played by Max Woertendyke) who managed to not only survive his father’s destructive force but actually flourishes on his memory and his legacy, is living in the same Hell’s Kitchen apartment and bringing up a child of his own with Evy (Lisa Snyder). He’s good friends with Corbin (Zachary Fletcher), the son of Phil and Janine and he seems to be doing well for himself. Unfortunately, Act One ends with so many questions that Act Two starts with an overload of exposition, though J. Anthony Roman manages to give a credible reason why two lifelong friends would be chatting about something they’d probably mulled over a hundred times before.

When Evy comes home from work she heads straight for the wine and gets busy polishing off a bottle of white … it’s more than just a small echo of James father’s cocaine addiction; it’s almost as if this is a guy who needs to re-live the past in order to understand it, and so he lives in the shadow of a loved one’s addiction in the way his mother did, perhaps to subconsciously understand what his father’s demon was about.

Jamie Klassel, in a much less gut-wrenching role, makes her appearance as Evy’s friend and Corbin’s love interest, Cyan. We spend less of a span of time with this foursome, but learn no less about them; and yet again watch as the lights go out not just in the city but also in a relationship. It is somehow no less heartrending.

Blackouts gives these four main actors each a great vehicle to flex their talent; each of the quartet brings a special note to this piece and give it texture and layers of emotions. Woertendyke – playing father and son both as seekers – is as out of control with lust, passion, and drugs in the first act as he is in control and focused in the second act. Both Snyder and Klassel are able to carry their storylines deftly and with great nuance, but are also able to play the supporting friend role without giving any less in their performance. It is Fletcher, however, (also playing father and son) who would have you swearing that he is a completely different actor in the second act, almost unrecognizable as the same person – so great is his transformation and his skill. Will just the flip of a hairstyle and the removal of a cheesy 70s mustache he was almost unrecognizable.

Blackouts has a great deal of tough life lessons, and hard journeys but a few victories of the spirit as well. This is one to definitely catch before the lights go out again.

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Blackouts
October 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22 at 7pm
October 10, 16, 17, 23, 24 at 8pm

Center Stage, NY?(48 W. 21st Street, 4th Floor)

Tickets: ?$18 General Admission?$15 Students / Senior (with ID)?Brown Paper Tickets 1-800-838-3006 ?www.brownpapertickets.com

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