Rabbit Hole

How does a family deal with grief so deep it is debilitating? That is the difficult brief American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire sets out to fulfil with his Pulitzer-winning play about the spiralling effect of grief over the loss of a child. And the team at Ad Astra show their usual bravery in not shying away from exploring challenging material.

Becca and Howie – played convincingly by Janelle Bailey and Stephen Hirst – are a housewife and Risk Management consultant living in New Rochelle, a coastal borough not far from Manhattan. They are struggling to hold on to their relationship after losing their son.  Becca’s mum, Nat (Julia Johnson) and vivacious sister, Izzy (Vanessa Moltzen) visit and annoy one another in the way that most families do. But there’s a fracture deep in this family, kept at bay by cakes and coffee, arguments and chit chat about peripheral characters from the past and present. But when Izzy reveals she is facing an imminent and drastic life change, it drops a bombshell that opens all the fissures. In this family’s case, spirals of grief are like genetic memory, DNA that courses through the family history, imparting its own guilt alongside the grief of losing sons in two different generations. The damage done to sisters, mothers, fathers, in-laws is a ripple effect. And, while the spiral of guilt and grief circles back into the family’s past, it also moves forward. Izzy’s life-changing decision, Becca and Howie’s willingness to move forward, and their connection with a young boy, Jason (Fraser Anderson) all show a way out and hope for the future.

I didn’t expect to enjoy this play. I haven’t seen the film version for the same reason – I anticipated difficult material. But it is a well-written and balanced play, with welcome humour. There may be darkness, but there is also laughter – and eating: life doesn’t just go away. There are still cakes to bake and zucchini slices to joke about. And this production is worth seeing for the performances of its well-chosen cast who are uniformly strong. Stephen Hirst’s Howie at first shows strength with his head-down, work-away-the-pain attitude. But when seemingly small moments affect him, you can feel the heartbreak: pleading to have his beloved dog back, even though it may have caused the accident that killed his son, and the despair when he realises that their only VHS tape of their son may have been recorded over, is very real. Janelle Bailey is superbly understated in her portrayal of the multifaceted Becca, and her face crumpling while listening to Fraser Anderson’s Jason talking about his prom night, imagining the moments she has missed with her son, is incredibly moving. When Becca finally asks her Mother for advice on dealing with grief, Julia Johnson displays the perfect control of a damaged character, too afraid to hug her own daughter, but the relief feels like a breakthrough moment in this fractured family. As Becca’s younger sister, Izzy, Vanessa Moltzen gives a spirited performance as the sibling who has always had to vie for attention by being a trouble-maker, only now she’s ready to use her talents to shock this family into healing. Representing a calm, reconciling character, young Fraser Anderson shows great skill in a difficult role. This is a really strong ensemble of players and they work well together. Costume Designer, Xanthe Jones, has kept everything suitably muted and ordinary – and you really feel that you know this family, especially with the stage configuration in the intimate Ad Astra space where you are sharing the room with the performers.

Where the material could risk straying into soap territory, Director Mikayla Hosking and her cast have obviously worked hard to keep all the performances pitch perfect. The crew at Ad Astra always deserve special mention, because it is such an intimate space and Stage Manager, Meg Toni, and Assistant Stage Manager, Lara Rix, also manage the audience as well as the cast. David Lindsay-Abaire’s script may be a tad long, especially for the small Ad Astra theatre space, and takes just too long to come full circle. I wonder if it could be trimmed to a one-act format? I also think relocating the family to a local Australian setting would have made it even more moving. But this is inconsequential to the enjoyment of this cast and production. 

Beth Keehn

www.adastracreativity.com/productions/rabbit-hole

Photographer: Neil Waters @ lifeofrileypictures