While they await the bulk of their furniture, Brigid and Richard welcome her parents Deidre and Erik, her older sister Aimee, and Erik's mother Fiona known affectionately as 'Momo'. She is now living with Erik and Deirdre as she succumbs to Alzheimer's. Almost brought on by the ear-crashing thuds from above, strains and cracks soon appear in the family.
Aimee reveals two related fears: she confides to Brigid that the Colitis she has been ill with is going to require expensive surgery and she tells the wider family that she suspects she will soon be fired from her law firm for her lengthy absences. She is also trying to hide the distress of her partner abruptly ending their relationship. But it's her revelation of a possible loss of income that sets off a series of seemingly-random revelations that, piece by piece, chip away at their benign exterior.
Deirdre is frustrated that the office she works in has constantly hired others rather than promote her but she continues to selflessly care for 'Momo' and volunteers for a church-run immigrants charity, while Brigid feels her attempts to be employed as a musician are being hampered by her professor's iffy character references. Karam subtly shifts the focus within the family: the sisters have a moment alone to bemoan their parents, Deirdre and Erik snipe at Brigid's new-age lifestyle which seems too expensive to offer much peace of mind, the daughters question what their parents abiding faith has ever really given them while, all the time, 'Momo' has to be pacified and cared for during the dinner. In a glorious moment for the family, she joins in with the Thanksgiving toast but when they ask her a question, she disappears again within.
As the electricity fails and the bottles pile up, Erik gets more abrasive and taunts Richard when Brigid reveals that he will inherit a small family trust fund in a few years time. All the unsettling fears - betrayal, poverty, illness, unemployment - finally erupt when school maintenance man Erik reveals to his daughters that he has been sacked when his affair with a teacher was discovered and, because he had a morality clause in his contract, he has lost his pension. His assertion that Deirdre and he have discussed it and are still fine rings hollow with the daughters and with the audience.
The final moments of his play allows Karam to return to his original idea as the apartment is plunged into darkness and an air of unsettling eeriness pervades the stage through what is seen and unseen. Has Erik, with the bad dreams that have haunted him since witnessing the September 11th attacks, manifested the atmosphere or is it just the world around us, now viewed as frightening by a society assailed by fear.
Karam's play leaves you hanging but it certainly provokes debate and conjecture into the lives of his six characters, the moves from comedy to tension flow smoothly within the dynamic that he builds between his characters, as jokes are shared, family memories are remembered and needling grudges are aired. With a real-time running time of 90 minutes, Karam certainly packs much in and yet leaves air for the characters to settle in, and all have their moments to shine.
Joe Mantello's direction is wonderfully fluid and pervasive, each small moment contributes to the whole, even if they seem unimportant at the time. Mantello also keeps the tension running underneath the mundane family dinner so you find yourself watching each corner of David Zinn's fantastic split-level set, even if it is in shadow and unpopulated.
Special mentions too for Justin Townsend's lighting which really comes into it's own at the end of the play as the one spot of light is the dull yellowish strip-lighting of the basement, and also to Fitz Patton for his soundscape of ordinary NY apartment sounds which seem to take on a chilling life of their own.
The Hampstead Theatre have had the wonderful good fortune to bring over the original off-Broadway then on-Broadway ensemble and they show the wonderful rapport and trust in each others' performances that has developed over their three years together.
Reed Birney is excellent as Erik, a seemingly ordinary man who is quietly collapsing within from the external pressures of keeping his head above water in today's world and he is matched by Jayne Houdyshell as Deirdre. It was said of Laurette Taylor's legendary performance in the Broadway premiere of THE GLASS MENAGERIE that she seemed like an ordinary woman who had wandered through the stage door onto the stage and Houdyshell brought that essence to THE HUMANS; a woman who just plows on, no matter what: worrying about her now-grown daughters - the first thing she does when she arrives is upbraid Brigid for not opening the care package she sent her during Hurricane Sandy, caring for her mother-in-law with the same attention she gives to the migrants at her church charity, and warily watchful of her struggling husband. There is a wonderful moment when Deirdre stands in darkness above overhearing her daughters in the basement make fun of the constant 'informative' e-mails that she forwards to them and, by just her body language, Houdyshell tells you all about her character's pain for that fleeting moment.
Cassie Beck as Aimee and Sarah Steele as Brigid possess the natural affinity of sisters who have quietly striven to escape their Catholic home, Beck wonderfully plays the scene where she calls her ex-lover, attempting to sound neutral in wishing her a happy holiday but struggling with her feelings as her ex-partner obviously wants to end the call while Steele manages to invest Brigid with enough brio to counter-balance the character's faddish obsessions with health foods and living the 'right' way. Arian Moayed navigates the slightly colourless role of Richard well, his well-meaning attempts at trying to make polite conversation with the formidable Erik and Deirdre are squirm-inducing and he does elicit sympathy when they seemingly snipe at him about his access to the wealth that they don't have; while Lauren Klein is a memorable 'Momo' in what must be a physically demanding role of seemingly doing little but being a powder-keg of emotions which burst out of her, particularly when she explodes in a rage towards the end of the play.
Most American plays which do well on Broadway - THE HUMANS won four Tony Awards including Best Play - tend to not fare well in London; like THE HUMANS they usually go to fringe theatres and rarely transfer. It will be interesting to see the fate of this wonderfully-crafted and acted play which lingers on in the memory afterward and deserves a wider audience.
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