Judy: A Generation All Grown Up!

Walk up to an office building on Christopher street, dial “15,” wait for the ‘buzz-click’ and open the heavy door. Try to ignore the smell of dog urine on the street and the sweaty men leaving the gym next door. Go to the basement and walk through a small side door. Congratulations, you made it to the New Ohio Theater waiting room. The walls are a warm yellow/orange. There are posters of past shows covering the wall opposite a row of five chairs. Get yourself a $6 beer and pass through the portal, into the theatre. It’s freezing but intimate. It is small, but the anticipation builds as you select a seat front and center. You can almost smell the perspiration of the anxious actors, waiting back stage to start their performance. The lights dim…Action.

Sitting alone in this theatre (I went without my class), I read the program; partially to gather information, mostly because sitting alone in a full theatre can feel a little awkward if you’re not used to it and a program can be the perfect armor. Judy is being produced by Page 73, a company that gives young, first time writers and chance to see their work come to fruition in New York City, from September 1-26th at The New Ohio Theatre. Judy was written by the young Max Posner who’s top credits include a 2013 MacDowell Colony Fellow and who was the 2015 Writer-In-Residence at Williamstown. His play takes place in the year 2040, a not to distant future, in an unremarkable, mid-sized, American city. Nothing special. It features a family, two sisters and a brother, their children, and a young man who works fixing computers in peoples homes. These three main characters, though in their mid-fifties to early-sixties, are oddly easy to relate to: As a 21 year-old you don’t often find yourself thinking that! But I couldn’t help but feel a connection to them. Then it hits me, they are me! Us! My generation! All the times I have wondered what the world will be like when I am my parents age and finally someone took a stab at answering the question. Not much has changed, yet everything seems to have. There are self driving cars, people don’t say “fuck” or “shit,” fill out a form to die on the same day as your spouse, and you have the ability to delete memories you wish not to keep. Handy huh? Though this is the setting for this production, it is not the highlight. Watching an average family deal with their disfunction.

And THE ACTING! This production was blessed with one of the best casts I have had the good fortune to watch; and every one of them was on level with the others. There was no slack. Our first speaker, the Brother Timothy, is a man struggling through the stench of being left by his wife (who never appears but is the namesake of the entire production) while guiding his daughter through the first coming of her period. Danny Wolohan’s rendition of a man on the brink kept us constantly invested. He always had us on the edge of our emotions; it is a struggle to know someone wants to cry, but to hold it back. Wolohan finds the perfect balance between suffering, but not shouting it to the world!
I honestly have equally wonderful things to say about the whole cast but if I did we’d be here until the cows come home! Let’s talk about the direction and design. In a small space, with a sometimes smaller budget, one has to get creative. The set was a basement living room/ family room. All three sibling’s spaces were represented in the space by three side-by-side desks. There is a couch, stage left a bedroom door, stage right a bathroom door and behind these desks a stairway with a landing that then disappears into what we accept was the main level of these homes. Often the characters are in the same space visiting each other, but a lot of the time they are occupying the same space while in their separate spaces. The first thought is that this would create clutter and confusion: Never once. It was always more than clear when the space was shared and when it was not. The lighting was simple, but it didn’t need to be more. It was not excessive. The same with the costumes. It was all very simple but very appropriate.

All in all this was a well rounded, classic play. It had humor, even in the darker moments. The sort of humor we pick up throughout our lives to be able to deal with the shit life throws at us. The character Timothy refuses to give up the word “fuck.” The eldest sister, Kris, is turned on by a young man using the word “shit.” There is immense love among characters who do not always get along. It was us…all grown up.