Next Act's "The Tin Woman" is a Bit Hollow
Photo by Troy Freund.
There is one beautiful scene in Next Act’s current production of Sean Grennan’s The Tin Woman, playing through December 18. It is the final moment of the play, illustrating an emotional connection between a young woman who receives a heart transplant, and the grieving family of the 30-something man whose sudden death made him a donor. It is almost wordless, and packed with a multitude of emotions that range from curiosity to discovery, pain to elation, and cynicism to wonder. Through facial expressions, tears, physical touch, and sharp intakes of breath that catch in the throat, the entire cast absolutely soars in this singular, beautiful moment. But the two-act play that leads up to this point of revelation is a series of predictable scenes between character types that try too hard to be funny, and don’t try hard enough to be engaging or original.
Photo by Troy Freund.
None of this is the fault of the actors, who give admirable performances of sub-par material. As the rudderless Joy, whose physical fate is changed forever when she receives an organ transplant for her failing heart, Jordan Wilson is a thoroughly believable woman whose new life implies that she wasn’t really living up to her potential in the old one. Dissatisfied with her work, her boyfriend, her relationships with family and friends, and her lack of operating instructions for this new heart, Wilson’s Joy mopes as she convalesces and cannot find any meaning in this blank new chapter of her life. Joy’s inability to “open her heart” to the world around her — let alone come in for a hug from a friend — makes that final scene all the more meaningful.
Photo by Troy Freund.
As Alice, the mother of the organ donor, Deborah Clifton is the strong center of her family’s quickly disintegrating fabric. With no-nonsense phrasing and little patience for unnecessary theatrics, she nudges her curmudgeonly husband Hank (an irascible David Cecsarini) forward on the road to acceptance after their son’s sudden death. Alice also persuades the family to be open to meeting Joy for dinner one night. As the meeting draws near, she tries desperately to stop her new-age hippie daughter Sammy (a squeaky Alexandra Bonesho) from bursting into tears, and urges Sammy to contain her almost inappropriate level of enthusiasm. Alice also strongly suggests that she refrain from blogging about the experience in excruciatingly public detail.
David Cecsarini chose the role of Hank as one of his final appearances on the Next Act stage while he was also at the organization’s helm, but even with his considerable passion and talent, the part is so predictable it’s uninteresting. He certainly channels the stereotypical grouch, an Archie Bunker with an affection for bourbon and little else. To add insensitivity to oblivious selfishness, at the performance I attended Cecsarini’s Hank raised the hackles of the women seated around me by finishing an argument with his wife Alice simply by grumbling about menopause.
As the flighty and over-expressive Sammy, Bonesho was clearly set up by director Edward Morgan to be the promised “laughter alongside the tears” in this production. And she is funny as the pre-school teacher who wants to see every event as a sign from the universe. But not only do do her quirks seem dated (her father has never heard of a blog?) her misunderstood dinner conversation feels painfully forced and her dialed-up-to-11 reactions place her in an altogether different play. If she is supposed to distract the audience from the serious side of the material, well, it’s successful, but not in a way that feels true or organic.
Photo by Troy Freund.
Meanwhile, the recently dearly departed son Jack (a warm Zach Thomas Woods) wanders through each scene with a bemused smile and an obvious affection for his heart’s recipient. Silent for much of the performance, he is the cheerful memory his family has conjured who still lingers. Woods loiters on the edge of the action like an elephant in the room. Waiting for his cue near the end of the story, Jack finally speaks — recreating the scathing disagreement that he and his father had just before the fatal accident, in order to exorcise some of his Hank’s demons. But after all that time, it would have been more interesting if the classic father-son antagonism and hostility had amounted to more than a stock generational clash.
While the script is unimaginative, the scenic design by Rick Rasmussen is anything but. A series of projected watercolor paintings portrays seasons and settings in colorful washes, blurry around the edges but easily recognizable. This creative backdrop for the play, which jumps back and forth in time, evokes the soft focus of memory and softens the hard edges of a reality none of these characters is ready for. It’s a beautiful visual metaphor for the material.
In a Milwaukee theater season that offers many uber-traditional and some completely non-traditional offerings for the holidays this year, The Tin Woman lands in the category of “dysfunctional family that experiences a miracle.” The subject of organ donation may not immediately mesh with thoughts of decked halls and decorated trees, shiny presents and sugarplum fairies, but fortunately the play’s moment of redemption is every bit as moving as Scrooge’s epiphany on Christmas morning.