Category Archives: Trip Cullman

Cult of Love casts a spell at Berkeley Rep

Posted on by
Reply

Cult of Love 110
ABOVE: The cast of Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love includes (from left) Lucas Near-Verbrugghe as Mark Dahl, Dan Hiatt as William “Bill” Dahl, Vero Maynez as Loren Montgomery, and Luisa Sermol as Virginia “Ginny” Dahl. The show continues through March 3 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. BELOW: Sermol as Ginny and Near-Verbrugghe as Mark. Photos by Kevin Berne


Can we just agree that the phrase “dysfunctional family” is redundant? Dysfunction is part of every family in one way or another, so when we say “family,” we mean a complicated set of relationships knit together with love, resentment, injury, abiding affection and mystery (among a whole smörgåsbord of other items).

Playwright Leslye Headland, probably best known for her film (Bachelorette, Sleeping with Other People) and TV (Russian Doll, the upcoming Star Wars: The Acolyte), goes right for the family jugular in Cult of Love, now at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre. This is like the frozen orange juice concentrate of family plays, and let’s just say there’s very little added water in this metaphorical pitcher.

This is the last part in Headland’s Seven Deadly Plays series, and it’s a fun sin for families: pride. At 100 intermissionless minutes, Cult of Love is equal parts dark comedy, withering drama and musical feast. With a boisterous play like this – 10 characters in a smallish Connecticut house for Christmas Eve – you know that for every big laugh (and there are many) there’s going to be something equally as painful later on (check).

Working with director Trip Cullman, Headland really piles on the issues for the Dahl family. Dad (Dan Hiatt) may be slipping into dementia, or maybe his constant stream of “I love you” and “I’m proud of you” is his way of trying to broker peace among the sibling combatants. Mom (Luisa Sermol) is heavy into denial about pretty much everything, but one family tradition she can get behind is the giant punchbowl full of Manhattans she brings out before the much delayed lamb dinner (and in the Dahl family, because tradition is everything, we pronounce the “b” in lamb because it’s…fun?).

The four grown Dahl children trudge through the snow for the one holiday when they’re all together. Of course they come bearing baggage of infinite variety. Mark (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) left the seminary to become a government lawyer and is now at a crossroads. He no longer considers himself a Christian. His wife, Rachel (Molly Bernard), converted to Christianity to marry him and gain the acceptance of the family. She’s bitter about a lot of things, including that, but her love for her husband, troubled as he may be, is never in doubt.

Diana (Kerstin Anderson) is expecting her second child with husband James (Christopher Lowell), a minister, and while their firstborn sleeps upstairs, they express God’s disapproval of sister Evie (Virginia Kull) and her wife, Pippa (Cass Buggé). They aren’t really gay, Diana, suggests, they’re just missing God from their hearts.

Cult of Love 223

It’s after 9pm, and everybody’s hungry, but mom won’t serve dinner until Johnny (Christopher Sears) arrives. He’s 10 years sober, but he still makes everyone nervous (except his mother, who doesn’t really accept that he was ever a heroin addict). When he does finally arrive, he’s accompanied by Loren (Vero Maynez), who is also in recovery and – too bad for the Dahls – is something of a shame-free truth teller.

Though the Dahls were a devoutly Christian family, the children have all traveled their own roads in and out of the church. Faith, prophecy and mental illness all get drawn into the religious discussions (and fights), where judgements, insults and intolerance (of all kinds) create a sort of hell storm set amid a cozy house over-decorated for Christmas (the set is by Arnulfo Maldonado and the lights are by Heather Gilbert).

Through it all, though, no matter how many times someone storms upstairs or stomps out of the house and says they’re not coming back, they still come back. The lure of the holiday, the promise of family as an ideal way to give and receive love, the need to reconcile past and present all create a sort of magnetic vortex that makes it almost impossible to escape, no matter how harsh and ugly things get.

And then there’s the music. Though not exactly the Von Trapps, there’s enough music here to need a music director and arranger (Jacinth Greywoode doing stellar work). The Dahls play piano, guitar, fiddle, melodica and any number of percussion instruments, and they love to sing holiday tunes, folk songs and even some more contemporary fare. The music on the piano is a volume called “The Family Songbook,” and as a family, they take music seriously – even the cranky or out-of-sorts family member can be coaxed to sing a line or two. It’s a meaningful source of connection, even amid the fracturing of relationships and the flames of explosions new and old. The music is a safe space.

Director Cullman and his cast achieve a believable level of hilarity and hatred, holiday and harassment as family members talk over, through and beyond one another. Each of us will likely identify strongly with one or another of these characters, and for me it was Rachel, Mark’s wife. She married into the Dahls but is still an outsider. She self-medicates and makes sure her wine glass is rarely empty. She’s not afraid to push back when things get spiky, and, in Bernard’s astute performance, she can be counted on for a good one-liner that’s usually something more than just a laugh.

The entire cast weaves a fascinating family web, but the play does get overwhelmed with so many issues: religion, mental illness, sexuality, addiction/recovery, childhood trauma, science denial and more religion. Pippa, the newest spouse in the family, feels the need to defend her wife but wonders, “How do you protect someone from their own family?” And later, Johnny admits that it took him years to “de-program” from his upbringing, not unlike a cult referenced in the title.

Headland eventually quiets things down enough to allow some sad, thoughtful and deep conversations to happen. Even after all the turmoil, she allows space for beauty and – if you’re feeling hopeful – love to settle in, however fleeting. It’s such a relief, though there’s no escaping the fact that even for the happiest of families (which this is most certainly not), there’s no such thing as a happy ending.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love continues through March 3 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: 100 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $22.50-$134 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

Theater review: `American Hwangap’

Posted on by
3

Opened April 12, 2009, Magic Theatre
 

Ryun Yu as David, a New York investment banker, talks on the phone with his sister, Esther played by Angela Yin in the Magic Theatre’s world-premiere production of Lloyd Suh’s American Hwangap. Photos by davidallenstudio.com

Mind the `Hwangap’: Laughs, pain fill Magic’s family drama
««« ½

To see simple, expert stagecraft at its very best, look no further than the Magic Theatre’s world-premiere production of American Hwangap by Lloyd Suh.

The plot is your basic dysfunctional American family drama – immigrant parents, divorce, troubled kids – but made all the more interesting for an approach that is about as far away from TV sitcom land as possible. Director Trip Cullman could have anchored Suh’s drama in a realistic Texas living room, couch and all. But the play is more interesting than that, and Cullman finds inspired ways to continuously offer surprises in his staging.

Erik Flatmo’s set is essentially one carpeted room and what is probably the most versatile dining room table imaginable. That table occasionally serves as a table (in a diner, in the family home), but more often it’s a basement fort of sorts, a climb-able tree in the yard, a car and even a fishing boat on a lake.

With York Kennedy’s lights to help give a sense of place and mood, that extraordinary one-room set is alive with possibilities.

Suh’s play aims to be both conventional – we all recognize parts of our family in this family no matter how different our backgrounds – and unconventional. He doesn’t always tell his story in a linear way, and the stripped-down, non-naturalistic set helps amplify the emotion of certain scenes. When he exposes his need for psychological explanation, this child is messed up in this way because of this action by a parent, the writing is less interesting.

But mostly the play pops because Suh is a funny writer who knows just how powerfully humor resonates through deep pain.

By not choosing a specific point of view from which to tell his story, Suh shifts the emotional focus from scene to scene, and while that may cause some snags here and there, the overarching portrait of a broken family emerges slowly. We know that the Chun family suffered a big loss 15 years earlier, when patriarch Min Suk Chun (Keone Young, right), an immigrant to the U.S. from Korea, abandoned his wife and three children to return home.

That left mother Mary (Jodi Long, below left) to provide for elder son David (Ryun Yu), now a slick investment banker in New York, middle daughter Esther (Angela Lin), twice divorced and generally confused, and younger son Ralph (Jon Norman Schneider,right, with Young), who’s approaching his 30s but living like he’s 16 in his mother’s basement, playing video games, sipping juice boxes and watching the world tread lightly around his “nervous condition.”

The family is in a state of upset with the homecoming of Chun. He’s returning from Korea to celebrate is “hwangap” (pronounced hwon-gap), a 60th birthday celebration that often inspires deep moral reflection amid much food, wine and conviviality. Though Mary is providing a bounteous feast, her children are having difficulty mustering gratitude and excitement at his pending arrival. Says David to his mother: “Just lemme understand what’s expected here: are you planning on a series of weepy hugs? Is all forgotten? Or is there a recrimination involved, a little weekend of apologies and fistfights?”

Cullman’s cast is incredibly appealing. Virtually all of the actors are adept at playing broad theatrical comedy and then pulling it all in for a tightly focused, emotionally true interaction. Each character emerges as more interesting and with more depth of feeling than we originally think as we initially navigate the familiar terrain of family drama.

The greatest surprise comes in the alliances – Mary with her aggressively contrite ex-husband, Ralph with the father who is surprisingly like him and, perhaps best of all, between distant brother David and lost sister Esther. There’s a scene between the two siblings late in the 90-minute play that has them both on the phone yet connecting in a way that will have a life-altering effect on both of them. It’s a gorgeous scene, beautifully written and played by Yu and Lin.

It’s all about second chances in American Hwangap, an ultimately forgiving, even loving, drama. The contrast of eastern Korea with western Texas gives way to the complexities of family dynamics and the surprising strength of those tricky familial bonds.

American Hwangap continues through May 3 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $40-$45 (with student, senior and educator discounts). Rush tickets for students, seniors, educators and people younger than 30: $10 one half hour before performance. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org for information.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Magic Theatre, after a rocky start to 2009 that almost capsized the theater, has announced its 2009-10 season: John Kolvenbach’s Goldfish (in cooperation with South Coast Repertory); the world premiere of Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey; Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus and a fourth play yet to be named.