January 10, 2008 in Features

‘Rabbit’ punch

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Photos by Ingrid Barrentine Special to photo

From left, Michael Weaver, Kathie Doyle-Lipe, Page Byers and Caryn Hoaglund star in the Actor’s Repertory Theatre’s production of “Rabbit Hole.” Special to
(Full-size photo)

The journey of “Rabbit Hole” to Spokane was surprisingly swift: from Broadway in 2006, to the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, to the Actor’s Repertory Theatre beginning this weekend.

ARt pounced on this play as soon as it could, and for good reason. This David Lindsay-Abaire drama was one of the most acclaimed Broadway plays of recent seasons.

It’s a family drama about a middle-class couple trying to cope with the death of their toddler. New York Times critic Ben Brantley said it inspired such “copious weeping” in the audience that he began to wonder if the theater had flood insurance.

Yet “Rabbit Hole” is not, by any means, a standard tear-jerker.

“This anatomy of grief does not so much jerk tears as tap them, from a reservoir of feelings common to anyone who has experienced the landscape-shifting vacuum left by a death in the family,” Brantley said about the Broadway production.

“… You never feel as if you have been mauled by a sentimental brute who keeps telling you to go ahead and cry, honey. There’s too much honesty, accuracy and humor in the details provided by the play.”

The word “humor” may seem surprising in a play about a child’s death, but humor is one of the coping mechanisms that the characters employ.

It’s certainly not surprising that Lindsay-Abaire would know how to use humor in a drama – his previous plays “Fuddy Meers” and “Kimberly Akimbo” were studded with quirky, absurdist wit.

“Rabbit Hole” represents something of a departure for the playwright, since it’s rooted in realism.

Lindsay-Abaire’s previous plays may have been described as “wacky,” but as a 2005 New York Times profile noted, he is far from wacky in real life. He’s a middle-class, middle-aged family man with a wife and young son – in other words, a lot like the characters in “Rabbit Hole.”

He told writer John Hodgman that when he wrote his earlier plays, he was in his 20s and not “scared of anything.”

Playwright Marsha Norman, his former teacher at Juilliard, told Lindsay-Abaire he should try to write about something that frightened him. “Rabbit Hole,” he said, “was just terrifying to write – it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written.”

It went on to become the most successful thing he’d ever written as well, earning five Tony nominations. Cynthia Nixon won a Tony for her portrayal of the mother Becca.

Then it became the surprise winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama – surprise, because it wasn’t even nominated. The judges went outside the three nominees to select it.

The ARt production is directed by Tralen Doler, a New Yorker who previously directed the theater’s “Drawer Boy,” “Born Yesterday” and “Moonlight and Magnolias.”

The cast features Page Byers as Becca and ARt artistic director Michael Weaver as the husband, Howie. Other cast members are Caryn Hoaglund, Kathie Doyle-Lipe and Jimmy James Pendleton.

ARt is a professional theater in residence at the Spartan Theatre on the Spokane Falls Community College campus.

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