Walnut and Vine

Marin Ireland, Jeanine Serralles, Trent Dawson and Peter Kim in "Walnut and Vine" A Playwrights Horizons presentation of the play in 2 functions by Jordan Harrison. Directed by Anne Kauffman.Katha - Marin Ireland Ryu - Peter Kim Dean - Trent Dawson Ellen, Jenna - Jeanine Serralles Roger, Omar - Pedro PascalJordan Harrison shelves up beaucoup points for originality with "Walnut and Vine," a satirical fantasy in regards to a contempo husband and wife who chuck their appropriately effective but demanding urban lives to consider residence inside a re-enactment community inside a suburb where it's forever 1955. Play requires a narrow look at the complex social systems that gave postwar America its feeling of stability, and also the plot activates a cliched sexual-identity crisis. However the writing is clever and Anne Kauffman's extremely wise production adds substantially towards the entertainment value. Lots of hands assisted shape this darkly appealing story book. Script was commissioned through the Stars Theater of Louisville and Berkeley Repetition and initially produced by the Ordinary people. Playwrights Horizons walked in after its premiere production in the 2011 Humana Festival. The attractive physical style of the show is really a study in contrasts. On Alexander Dodge's set, the twenty-first century is made in neon blues, rain-streaked glass, and highly polished metal surfaces -- a pleasant reflection from the chilly modern world lived on by Katha (Marin Ireland), a posting professional, and her husband Ryu (Peter Kim), a cosmetic surgeon. Ireland delivers a shateringly funny portrait of nerve-wracked Katha, who eliminates getting an overall total meltdown by giving up her job. Husband Ryu, a sensitive and macho guy in Kim's appealing perf, jettisons their own career ambitions to aid his depressive spouse when she indicates they unplug themselves using their separating cell phones and apple ipods and videogames and take a long visit to the greater interactive nineteen fifties. Harrison engineers their escape through the Society of Dynamic Obsolescence, a whimsical organization of nineteen fifties re-enactors who've built one suburb of this vapid period. Unlike the black-and-whitened movies of this decade, this restoration community is available within the real life as well as in living color -- the signal for that designers to drench happens in hot lights and haul the Danish Modern furniture and crinoline petticoats. (Ilona Somogyi's wasp-waisted dresses are legitimately ghastly.) Dean, the jolly employer for SDO (performed having a relentless smile by Trent Dawson) and the adoring wife Ellen (Jeanine Serralles, flashing her very own rictus smile), function as instructors and guides for this Technicolor fantasy world. Dean will get Ryu employment around the set up line in the local box factory, Ellen gives Katha her recipe for pigs-in-a-blanket, and before lengthy, the beginners are pretty much modified for their rigid roles. Adopted this superficial level, "Walnut and Vine" is harmless fun. But outdoors of the scaly-lower party (with period-appropriate Smirnoff vodka, not modern-day Gray Goose) and a game title of charades, the Society of Dynamic Obsolescence does not really provide the human connections that Dean guaranteed these pigeons when he employed them. The moments are extremely sketchy, the cast of figures too modest, and also the scribe's ambitions too small to create the bowling leagues, the whist parties, the knitting circles, the Bingo nights, the PTA conferences, the social club dances, and also the high-school football games that composed the material of community existence. But when he does not do justice towards the social scene, Harrison is much more secure covering the moral climate, that they signifies weight loss repressive than innocent. Like a Japanese-American within this postwar world, Ryu does not possess a prayer of moving away from the set up line, and Katha just needs to lump it when she knows that the pill has not come to exist yet. Funny factor about nostalgia, the truth is always more difficult compared to dream. And also the period evils of racial prejudice and sexual suppression are clearly simpler targets for Harrison to defend myself against compared to period values of political patriotism and marital fidelity.Sets, Alexander Dodge costumes, Ilona Somogyi lighting, David Weiner original music and seem, Bray Poor production stage manager, William H. Lang. Opened up 12 ,. 7, 2011. Examined 12 ,. 2. Running time: 2 Hrs. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com