Man in Snow

Play (2016)
Written and directed by Israel Horovitz

With Will Lyman (David), Ron Nakahara (Mr. Takayama), Paul O’Brien (Detective/Connie), Ashley Risteen (Emily), Sandra Shipley (Franny), Francisco Solorzano (Joey)

In the wake of a loss, David has gone on a hiking expedition to Denali and encounters a troupe of Japanese hikers on a mission to gain sexual powers from the Northern Lights. Meanwhile, his memories and life surround him, continuing to prevail in surges, while the larger world prepares to move around him.

This impressionistic drama is a collage of images that rush in from the past in no particular order and with no particular destiny. Heartfelt, it explores family fractures on a variety of levels and attempts to weave a narrative of long marriage, complicated internal family relations, and the disruptions that result.

The setting by Jenna McFarland Lord is abstract – a white circle, a kind of ritual platform, upon which the actors appear, removing their shoes beforehand. When not active, they sit behind and wait. There’s something very Japanese about the whole approach, not clearly drawn from Japanese dramatic styles but seeming to borrow something of their heightened formalistic rigor. It thus seems not unrelated or inconsequential that one of the central characters, Mr. Takayama (Ron Nakahara) is Japanese.

The rest of the drama is very down to earth and American, with no holds barred on melodramatic interchanges among the members of David’s family – his wife Franny (Sandra Shipley), daughter Emily (Ashley Risteen), son Joey (Francisco Solorzano) and cousin Connie (Paul O’Brien). They expostulate, emote, rant, rail and plead plaintively throughout on a variety of themes and fronts, all of which are meant to paint a picture of emotional complication and eventual resolution.

When the climax comes, a long phone call ensues, addressing the attenuation of relationship and subsequent clarification of feelings between two of the characters. Given the presumed physical conditions described, it is difficult to imagine that signal actually going through, though the playwright presumably was inspired to write the play based on a news report of such an unlikely communication. To accommodate this unexpected communication, there is a long final scene in which a strange recumbent duet is played. The set at this point, symbolizing a great deal of snow, calls to mind wool in storage, an oddly baroque addendum to the nearly bare set and the abstract white circle of what has preceded.

Will Lyman, a terrific Boston-based actor, plays the lead and, as always, lends great dignity to the role. Sandra Shipley, who plays his wife Franny, has a gentle British charm that explodes into a hilarious rebuke at a certain point; it’s the high point of the play.

There’s a great deal of complicated emotion packed in a small space here, not always given enough room to develop. Themes are raised, pushed forward and sometimes unexpectedly dropped. The most obviously orphaned of these is the interaction between David and his daughter Emily which, as it appears and recedes, leaves one somewhat dumbfounded about where it has come from and where it is going.

A group indulgence in a song near the end is in itself amusing and lively but is, in the context of the drama, tonally out of place.

Apparently Israel Horowitz wrote this originally as a two character radio play, which I imagine might well have exhibited the playwright’s immense capacity as a writer of taut dramas. I saw one of those taut dramas by Horovitz at the Boston Theater Marathon a couple of years ago – a ten minute play about a man who carries on the internet correspondence of his deceased son. It was beautifully written, well crafted, and starred the great Will Lyman, who there had a significant opportunity to dramatize Horovitz at the writer’s very best.

The play goes to LaMama in Manhattan for a three week run starting November 1.

– BADMan