Playwright: Dan LeFranc. At: American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron Ave. Tickets: 773-409-4125; www.atcweb.org; $43-$48. Runs through: Feb. 14
Two young actors give outstanding performances in this world premiere, playing estranged siblings of a disintegrated family. Kelly O'Sullivan ( Tess ) and Matt Farabee ( Alec ) are committed, completely believable, quietly nuanced and passionate ... to the degree that Dan LeFranc's reticent world premiere allows them passions. To say that Tess and Alec's feelings are internalized or repressed is an understatement. Eventually that's a problem with Bruise Easy, but it isn't because of the work of O'Sullivan and Farabee or of the show's steady and intelligent director, Joanie Schultz.
Those who saw LeFranc's The Big Meala huge hit for American Theater Company two years agowill immediately notice the stylistic disconnect between that play and this one. The former was a large-cast ensemble work spanning several generations of a family's history. This one is an intimate two-character play spanning a few days, although also about family in a way.
Bruise Easy channels Greek tragedy, using a self-aware chorus and the idea of a cursed family, or house, with a barely-concealed incestuous streak. It's the physical house which seems cursed, not just the family living in the house, but it's slightly obscure. The setting is the driveway and garage door of a shabbily-kept house in a good 'hood in Southern California in 2005. Twentysomething Tess returns home after a long absence, partly because she's pregnant. She expects help, nurturing, something from her mother. Upon arriving wheelie in hand, she finds her slacker brother, perhaps twenty, sitting in the driveway with a camera, maybe expecting her and maybe not. A chorus of neighborhood kids occasionally provides narration or commentary.
Tess and Alec spend several days on the concrete, mom never comes home, the siblings talk sparingly of love, need, abandonment ( their mother clearly has abandoned them, as Tess abandoned them and maybe their father ) and family secrets ( incest? physical violence? ). Then they leave together, immediately after a clearly incestuous episode ( just short of sex ) and violent physical action concerning Tess's pregnancy. Ultimately, LeFranc's 75-minute play raises more questions than it answers about Tess and Alec's circumstances. They are withdrawn, cautious and inarticulate and we are offered precious little exposition. As a result, there's little emotional connection which makes it difficult to care about them.
Bro and Sis are drably dressed vs. the colorfully clad and masked chorus ( Jenny Mannis, costumes ). Lee Keenan's pop-art sky projections also provide color against the monochrome of the driveway and garage door ( Chelsea M. Warren, scenic ). LeFranc and the designers seem to say, "There's life and color all around you, but you two are dead." Although Bruise Easy is solemn, the chorus offers some needed, self-referential gentle humorand even Alec has a few slacker-style comic lines.