The Pain and the Itch

Playwright's Horizons is a fantastic theatre - with great work, a great space, great house managers - overall....it's....well, great!

Their new play, the first of the season, is called The Pain and the Itch, and it's set around a family's Thanksgiving dinner. Stop and consider the title for a moment - pretty much comes right to mind that something not too pleasant is going on. Well that's about right - this isn't your ordinary Thanksgiving. I like what Charles Isherwood says in the NYT review today so much that I'm going to include it:

"During cocktails, crudités are on offer, accompanied by onion dip and assorted ill-disguised insults. The main course is turkey, basted in bile and stuffed with chestnuts, onions and long-held grievances. Side dishes include braised Brussels sprouts sprinkled with shaved almonds and hypocrisy, and cranberry sauce spiced with orange zest, racism and recrimination. Dessert is pumpkin pie of course, accompanied by lengthy discussions of pornography and disturbing hints of pedophilia. Anyone for seconds"

He sums it up right there.

I'm just going to go all out and discuss the plot - so if there's a chance you might see the show - stop here.......The play starts with a couple, the perfect, organic-living type of couple that's stereotyped so often in sitcoms and movies, discussing the events that took place in their home over a particular Thanksgiving dinner. They're talking with a man, dressed in garb that would suggest he's from the Middle East - he just doesn't seem to fit in with the picture. As they talk, he asks questions about what has happened and the scene jumps back in time to re-hash the events, all while this man is watching along the sidelines. It's very odd, because for the first half and most of the second - the audience has no idea why this man is here. We learn that this couple has a young daughter and that the husband's mother and brother and his young Russian girlfriend have all joined at their house for Thanksgiving. The two brothers talk in private about a certain inflamation that the young girl has - that they hide from her mother.

Events unravel and we learn that this is far from the perfect family - that they all have major qualms with one another. Hints are thrown in here and there about certain things - i.e. the family's nanny has diabetes and she keeps her things in the house. Towards the end - when we're still not really sure what's going on - has the daughter been abused? why are they hiding this? where is they play going? ..... everything comes to a halt and the huge secrets are revealed. These secrets are as follows....(be prepared for the craziness) - the brother's girlfriend was raped as a young girl by a group of soldiers in Russia, who gave her Chlamydia - while the wife was pregnant, she had an affair with the brother, who gave her and her unborn child Chylamydia... e.g. the Pain and the Itch. This we learn in about five minutes of dialogue....and yes, my mouth dropped. We also find out that the man watching the story unfold is the husband of the dead nanny. Throughout the re-telling of the story, the family had been insinuating that the nanny had played some part in the daughter's sickness. Unknowingly, the father had been on the phone with 911 while saying these things. The police, in turn, headed to the nanny's house - arrested her and her family - and took them away. They refused her food and drink, and because she was diabetic, she went into a coma....and passed away... Deep breaths...yes, this did all unfold, very quickly, at the end.

Well - that's the plot. The cast was mostly good - Jane Houdyshell (of Well fame last season on Broadway) was the standout. All the others seemed pale in comparison. I really liked the shock-value of the writing more than the cast, direction, or set - but overall it's a good night at the theatre - quite the social commentary...and makes me remember how good most of us really have it.....