The latest from The Debate Society finds trio Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Oliver Butler continuing to improve their dramatic craft and explore new genres. Though based in New York, the always inventive team delivers an original and alluring new play about an under-utilized region in the American theatrical imagination: the mountain west.
JACUZZI by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen at Ars Nova Thru November 15 (extended)
NEW YORK – When it comes to contemporary stage presence, the American west – and particularly the mountain west – is overdue for more face time.
The desolate basins, craggy backcountry and big sky vistas so aptly described as “Like no place on earth” by the Wyoming department of tourism could just as easily be called “Like no place on stage”. Because we so rarely see them there.
We’ve seen them a bit in THE LARAMIE PROJECT and some of Sam Shepard’s plays. But the mountain west has never been in demand as a setting for American dramatists – probably because both they and their audiences live mainly in urban centers on either coast. Generally when the curtain goes up, we expect to see New York City, New England, Chicago or California on stage, and we can probably all think of dozens of plays that take place in those locales.
But can you name one that takes place in, say, Colorado?
Now you can.
Because the Debate Society’s Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Oliver Butler have given us the compelling new thriller JACUZZI, which is receiving a rousing sold out premiere at New York’s Ars Nova. I can’t recall another recent American play that not only takes place in the rural mountain west but actually feels specific to the place in quite the way JACUZZI does. It’s an extremely promising foray into an under explored regional setting on American main stages.
Upon first entering Ars Nova’s theatre on W 54th Street 10 minutes before show time, I understood the reason behind instructions to show up early to secure a good seat. The long, narrow room makes Soho Rep look like a full theatre in the round, and the only seats left were on the far end. I thought I would need a pair of binoculars to follow the action in the real live jacuzzi (yes, there is one), which is prominently installed just inside the entrance. As it turned out, my seat was fine to see and hear everything. But if you want to be right in front of a lot of the main action, get there early and sit on the left side.
Another reason you’ll want to arrive early is to take in every detail of Laura Jellinek’s exquisitely rendered set, which is the living room of a decomposing Colorado ski chalet circa 1991. The house was probably built 10-15 years before that, placing it in the vanguard moments of a nascent ski industrial complex that would soon carpet bomb the mountains of Colorado with 10,000 square foot godzilla mansions.
The latter beasts of log and steel typically sit quiet most of the year, save for gentle background accompaniment from golf course sprinklers and rattling chair lifts. Jellinek’s creation, which is from an older, simpler era of luxury, captures the intertwining strands of material wealth and emotional poverty that will define this story’s territory. We sense a family with the resources to jet around, if not the time or inclination to connect with one another.
As the play begins, we overhear someone leaving a message on a vintage answering machine. There’s some sort of trouble with the rental management company, but we don’t quite understand what it is. The lights come up to reveal Helene (Hannah Bos) and Derek (Paul Thureen) making free use of that fixture of 1980’s ski resort apres ski – a jacuzzi.
On first glance, the two appear to be mountain town underclass archetypes, slackers who are more likely to clean and paint ski houses than own them. The opening vibe is inarticulate, found object comedy – don’t worry, that won’t last. There are clues close at hand that darker material looms, but director Oliver Butler only lets us look for a second before moving on. What’s with that cast on Helene’s left forearm? Huh.
A day glo skier soon appears outside on a snow machine and lets himself in the sliding door, and this is the first of many signs we’ll get that something isn’t quite right in paradise. “Bo” (which is short for Robert or Bobby) is the mid 20’s (and quite damaged) son of the chalet’s owner. Bo (Chris Lowell), who has come all the way from Switzerland, thought he was showing up a day before his dad’s arrival to have the place all to himself. Bo and his father clearly don’t get along, but somehow they are going through the motions of entering a long-running father-son ski race that they used to do when Bo was young, as if this familiar ritual can bridge the aching divide that subsequent time has opened between them.
But meanwhile Bo figures the two of copious hair and scarce clothing in the jacuzzi are renting the house and he doesn’t ask too many questions before raiding the local brandy supply and launching into some revealing stories about his family background, which is not a warm one. We learn that Bo’s parents were child psychologists and went through a horrible divorce. They also used Bo’s childhood as material for some of their well known books, like the frighteningly titled MAKING BOBBY ROBERT, which Helene and Derek are reading in the jacuzzi as Bo enters.
The next morning the ever high energy and super talented Peter Friedman as Robert the dad shows up, and it’s game on for a painful weekend of acrimony, leavened by mind-altering substances and hot tubbing. As time goes on, we gradually realize how out of control Bo and his father are in their own worlds – so much so that they both assume the other one arranged for the mysterious caretakers to be there. Who these two are and why they are there is a dark thread that unwinds – not always in a tonally consistent way. But when the story detonates, it’s kind of a high mountain FARGO.
What makes this show so arresting is the ghostly quality of the slow tension burn. That and the unusual setting. Dramatically, a ski cabin above town cleanly confines our world to the one room while still richly evoking what is just out of sight down the slope. As a storm cranks up, the four are all trapped in their own ways. There’s an end of the world sense about the microscopic closeup. And we don’t immediately see what’s up.
The acting is also quite strong, particularly from Friedman’s corner. As the manic, clueless wealthy dad, Friedman whipsaws from worry to oblivion to a hit from that pipe the others are passing around the tub. Lowell is a gorgeously buff but emotionally blank kid whose job appears to be traveling around the world, where he has left some significant (unspecified) wreckage.
If there’s a problem in the play’s story, it’s the incompletely rendered identities of Helene and Derek. The two stay stone-faced throughout, but there’s something that doesn’t quite make sense about what happens. I never understood why they did what they did, or how they could take such big risks. What do they want? It’s not clear.
Another speed bump is two brief voiceover sections from Helene, which are used to basically tell us what happened. These don’t fit with the otherwise straight naturalistic style and suspenseful dramaturgy. They dump a lot of important info all at once. I wonder if this backstory could be built into the play more organically.
But overall, Bos, Thureen and Butler make superlative use of a novel western setting to craft that most rare of theatre commodities – a story that feels new and exciting. We are pulled in by this jagged, hazy tale, and we can only hope for more of the same from The Debate Society in future.
