April 28, 2013
By Kerstin Broockmann
Rajiv Joseph’s writing is becoming a mainstay on Chicago stages (recent productions include Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and Gruesome Playground Injuries). His dialogue is believable yet easily poetic and he explores the difficulties of finding one’s place in the world through the eyes of characters to which the audience can relate. Lake Effect, receiving its world premiere in a smart, entertaining and powerful staging by Timothy Douglas for Silk Road Rising, is a welcome addition to the list. Though it takes some turns that defy credulity, Lake Effect ultimately is a funny and moving examination of families, culture and the American Dream.
“a funny and moving examination of families, culture and the American Dream”
Set in an Indian Restaurant in the midst of an “apocalyptic” snow storm, the characters are bound together by a web of circumstances that is slowly revealed. The often hilarious dialogue lets us know that we are definitely in Cleveland (the playwright’s hometown) and gives each character a distinct voice that reflects their own cultural, social and emotional heritage. The set by Dan Stratton is realistic and detailed, and if you wonder why a particular detail was included, it will most likely be revealed later in the play. The lighting by Sarah Hughey sculpts the stage pictures and subtly echoes the emotional shifts in the play and the elements outside.
The play opens with Bernard (also known as Bernie, played by Mark Smith) demanding a meal from Vijay (Adam Poss) just after closing time. As he tries to kick out the unwanted tardy customer, Vijay discovers that Bernie is more than a late diner. He has access to information about Vijay’s family that Vijay himself has never heard. The one thing that Bernie does not know is that Vijay’s father, Vinny, has a son. We soon discover that Vijay has been estranged from his family long enough to be completely out of the loop about recent developments. In his absence, it appears that Vinny has uncharacteristically taken in Bernie as a confidante. He has shared details of his life that his children never knew and told Bernie all about his beloved but maddening daughter Priya. Bernie’s interests have also rubbed off on the previously miserly, traditional and taciturn Vinny, who has become a sports fan with an uncanny knack for betting on the right football team and a loquacious conversationalist. The meeting is tense, with both men believing they have a greater right to be in the family home than the other. The men’s sense of entitlement is trumped by Priya when she arrives from Florida. The estranged siblings and the mysterious interloper who was Vinny’s closest friend take turns alienating and forming alliances with each other in the uneasy triangle. The siblings bicker about money and lob accusations and insults at each other about the accident that took their mother’s life and their own failed attempts to achieve the American dream. They disparage their father even while it becomes clear that he supported their efforts at every step. The only thing that the siblings consistently agree on is that Bernie does not belong there. As more of the past comes to light, it becomes clear that the dead are still very much with the living (the titular Lake Effect, as Bernie explains).
Douglas propels the action at a fast pace, but allows the characters and the audience to experience the full weight of the revelations the characters share. Mark Smith as Bernard is the conscience and emotional driver of the play; he fully realizes the character’s enthusiastic appreciation of his benefactor and his sense of betrayal and outrage at the actions of Vinny’s biological offspring. He finds all the nuances in several poetic monologues that encapsulate the play’s themes. Adam Poss struggles at times to shade his character’s anger, the root of which is not fully revealed until near the end of the play. He also has the unenviable task of playing the true outsider, being the only character who does not have a relationship with either of the others or his father at the beginning of the play, which means he spends a lot of time being dumbstruck by the new information he is hearing. Despite this, Poss creates a character that we think we want to get to know, using humor and angry sarcasm to shield himself against the emotions that threaten to surface. Minita Gandhi brings unpredictable energy to the role of Priya, capturing her fragility as well as her emotional and material neediness. There is a thinly veiled desperation behind each line as she bullies and manipulates the other characters onstage before being forced to confront herself. Each of the actors capture their own character’s need for belonging and navigate the various strategies they employ to find a home, rather than a place to live.
Though much of the play consists of characters remembering and revealing the past, the recalled events come to life as if they were happening in the present, and eventually they create a confrontation whose outcome is anything but certain. The play not only documents the clashing of cultures but of memories, as the characters discuss what makes a family and who is entitled to the now-absent father and his legacy. The three characters’ memories of Vinny and the lives they shared but didn’t are all required to complete the picture of the patriarch none of them really knew, but the secrets they reveal result in an emotional storm as violent as the one raging outside the door.