The Fall to Earth
Opening Night: January 13, 2012
Closing: February 5, 2012
Theater: 59E59 Theaters
Kenny lived his life in secret. His mother and sister travel to an unfamiliar town looking for answers. With the help of a local policewoman they uncover tragic truths about him, their family and themselves in this sharp-witted new play by Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson.
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January 19, 2012
Grief causes people to do odd things. Like sniff their grown daughter’s bra. (Not while it’s being worn, but still.) Or pinch a police officer. Twice.
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January 19, 2012
Joel Drake Johnson’s play The Fall to Earth, now at59E59 Theaters under the direction of Joe Brancato, starts out as a delicate and moving study in grief. Fay (Deborah Hedwall) and her daughter Rachel (Jolie Curtsinger, giving an excellent, fully dimensional performance) arrive in a small town to collect the body of their son and brother Kenny, who has died under mysterious circumstances. Unfortunately, the play eventually runs out of imagination.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 18, 2012
Before Fay and Rachel enter, we know what kind of relationship they have. As the quarrelsome mother and passive daughter bicker about the use of motel keycards—"Does this make the world a better place?" Fay shouts in her grating tones—playwright Joel Drake Johnson illustrates more than just the generational divide between the pair. When they burst into a dark, manicured motel room (pristine set design by James J. Fenton), it’s clear that there’s a loaded history here.
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January 20, 2012
Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina begins with the line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Joel Drake Johnson’s disturbing play The Fall to Earth provides a perfect example of just how uniquely unhappy one dysfunctional family can be.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 18, 2012
A brilliantly written and constructed play dealing with issues of suicide and family dysfunction.
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