Review - Lemon Sky

I was very fortunate to get a ticket to the Keen Company’s production of Lanford Wilson’s Lemon Sky.  It’s being done at the Clurman (and really, they need to work on temperature control there), and closes this weekend.

I thought the production was fantastic.  Wilson’s autobiographical piece about spending six months as a teen with his estranged father, is really stunningly theatrical, with flashbacks and repetition and flash forwards and breaking of the fourth wall.  It’s amazingly fluid but you always know where we are in time.  Hats off to the director for keeping everything so clear.  Actor Keith Nobbs, as our narrator, Alan, is spectacular.  He is not only telling the story as a rueful adult, but he is also charmingly befuddled and questioning as his teen self.  Kevin Kilner is brutal and charming at the same time as the father.  You can see why Alan is so conflicted about his memories and feelings—you see the possibility, and weep for the shattered reality.  Kellie Overbey is also terrific as the stepmother.  Warm and maternal, yet hard-headedly practical.  It’s a rather tough line to walk. 

The gal playing the troubled Carol is a tad less successful—I just think she’s not a seasoned enough actress to mine all the layers.  The gal playing the repressed Penny was terrific—she reminded me of Jennifer Jason Leigh; so much simmering underneath the surface.  And very very funny.  Oh, and the little guys playing the stepbrothers were adorable and heartbreaking at the same time.

A memory play, the scenes are almost scrapbook-like.  It IS like memory—remembering bits and pieces of things, with flashes of insight, then adding and subtracting once you feel like the memory has achieved perfection.  It’s achingly poignant, and builds beautifully to a devastating finish.  I was audibly sobbing through the end, and actually kept crying and had to go to the restroom after the show to stop. 

The language is gorgeous, as per usual in a Lanford Wilson play.  You listen, almost reveling in the everyday beauty of the dialogue, then suddenly you’re hit with a haunting image that is so perfect, your breath stops.  Plus, it’s all so authentic.  There was one line where I laughed out loud, because I could just hear Lanford saying it.  

Hardly anyone writes anymore in the beautifully poetic way that Lanford did.  I hope we get to see many revivals of his work in the near future—it’s just sad that he won’t get to see them, too.  If you’re not doing anything tonight or tomorrow, you should head to the Clurman.