All marriage is compromise, but sometimes even the most elastic of relationships can be strained to the breaking point. In Gene Ruffini’s world premiere drama, sixty-something professional couple Paul and Joan West find her birthday celebration marred by familial realizations and recriminations. Sick of the hypocrisy and denials among his “always-loving” relatives, and fueled by drink and his impending divorce, their eldest son Don lashes out at his parents, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, his “perfect” brother, and his lesbian sister and her girlfriend, desperately trying to get all present to confront his proclamations of infidelity, betrayal, enabling and self-loathing. A play where sins of the father and mother come crashing down upon the children, where pride goes before the fall, and where the question becomes “how much is too much” when it comes to sticking by those you profess to love?
By Gene Ruffini.
Directed by Jessica Zweiman.
New York