Next Act Theater opens its new season with a new play for Milwaukee audiences and also a new performing space. While its new, 150-seat theater is under construction this year, the Next Act season is happening at the nearby Tenth Avenue Theater. Next Act is doing a shorter season (i.e., fewer plays) during this interim year, but they've got a good start with Four Places.
As the play's simple title suggests, the action is limited to four places, in and around an upscale coffee shop. There's another significant "four" as well: the play has four characters: a mother, her two children and a waitress at the mom's favorite coffee shop. The mom eats here regularly when her daughter picks her up for their weekly lunch date. But this time is different. The mother senses that "something is up" when they are joined by her son. Tension builds even before the mother gets in her daughter's car. How do you ask your mother if she's trying to kill your father? The mother is smart as a whip (unlike her husband, who seems to vegetate on the couch most of the day). This unseen character is ill and, according to his wife, seems to be in constant pain. They live in their own home. A part-time helper/housekeeper comes in daily and is the one who reports to the daughter about events in the household.
Four Places has an impressive pedigree. It comes to Milwaukee via Chicago, where it premiered at the Victory Gardens Theater. The Chicago playwright is a member of the VG Theater Playwrights Ensemble. Four Places went on to earn considerable acclaim in Chicago and at its next production in Los Angeles.
In the Milwaukee production, director David Cecsarini (who is also the company's artistic director) keeps the pressure on for the whole show. The periodic laughs are genuine and a much-needed break from the serious discussion between parent and child. The play asks the eternal question: at what point do roles become reversed, and it is the child who must look after the parent?
Flora Coker, who plays the mother, is not about to let the situation shift without a fight. She is charming, wily, funny, smart and manipulative. When she is momentarily out of the room, the kids keep asking each other: "are we doing the right thing?" The play is well-balanced enough to keep the answer away from the audience's grasp. It is up to each person to decide for himself/herself if they are indeed doing the right thing.
A couple of things are a bit troublesome in retrospect: the children never bring in social-service agencies to assist them in solving their dilemmas. Neither do they broaden the discussion to include the perspective that perhaps the mother is overwhelmed and acting out of desperation. They are trying to lessen her burden, after all. But such an argument probably wouldn't hold much sway with the mother, who clings to her independence and her husband.
Coker is a marvel as the mother, and she gains a great deal of sympathy from the audience. Her children, deftly played by Mary MacDonald Kerr and Mark Ulrich, do a beautiful job of portraying their characters' own flaws, which may or may not come into play in terms of how they handle the mother situation.
The overly protective waitress, played by Laura Gray, has a bigger role in this family than the playwright allows her to mention. Since her involvement isn't fully explained, one might wonder why she is so quick to take the mother's side against her children. As the son points out, the waitress is interfering with family matters that don't concern her. Is this true? The playwright hints at another reasonable answer one that the son and daughter don't seem to realize.
The play is performed with minimal sets and props. Action often is mimed, perhaps to keep the audience as off-guard as possible. This is unfamiliar territory for this family and perhaps the audience as well. It asks tough questions and does a well-crafted job of working through the answers. Once again, Next Act proves its position as a thought-provoking theater experience.
