Milwaukee’s In Tandem Theater, now in its 18th season, reminds us that local theater exists to allow creative people an outlet to exhibit their craft. This refers not just to local actors, but local playwrights, too. Milwaukee-born and raised Michael Nevile shares his semi-autobiographical play, Lamps for My Family, at In Tandem. Neville’s plays also have been seen at ACT Seattle, the Actors Theater of Louisville, and Denver’s Changing Scene, as well as at several theaters in Milwaukee.
Lamps is set in the living room of an old house. It is, in fact, the one that Jack Duddy grew up in. With his career and marriage falling apart in New York, Duddy comes home to care for his ailing mother. In the opening scene, he ponders why he hasn’t moved away from this large, ramshackle house after his mother’s death.
In this one-man play, Jack remarks to the audience that the house feels eerily quiet these days compared to when he was growing up. Back then, a rotating collection of as many as 20 Duddy family members and friends lived there. Now they are all gone, although each is represented by a living room lamp. The lamps are as varied as the oddball relatives themselves. There are stately Stiffel table lamps and modest barroom-type novelty lamps. There’s a green-shaded desk lamp and a lava lamp. Some small lamps have frilly shades or no shades at all. As Jack, local actor Mark Corkins plays more than 20 characters. With only a shift in body language and his voice, be brings each family member vividly to life. There’s his father, a sergeant-at-arms at the city courthouse by day and a bouncer by night, and his sweet-tempered mother, who worked as a nurse. Throughout the evening, the audience is introduced to one-eyed uncles, a long line of siblings (this is an Irish Catholic family after all, Jack explains), and even the pet dog. Jack recalls many others, such as soldiers who never made it home from war, and aunts who never married. Corkins manages to keep it all interesting, even if the audience can be forgiven for not remembering all these myriad family ties. (Thankfully, the program offers a list of these characters.) Although most of the stories told about Jack’s relatives are sad, Neville’s writing shows an abundance of humor. Much of it is dark humor, the kind that elicits a huge laugh instead of a string of small chuckles. At one point, Jack remarks that visiting an insane asylum in Paris felt like attending a family reunion. Jack notes that his prescient grandfather, a doctor, not only paid off the mortgage but also the house’s property taxes for 20 years. He must have sensed that many of his less-prosperous kin would have no other place to go. Director Chris Flieller, who’s also the company’s artistic director, keeps things moving at an even pace. The staging, which takes Corkins all around the small set, seems natural and also focuses the audience’s attention. As each relative is discussed, Corkins turns on the appropriate lamp. One particularly funny sequence involves Jack’s seemingly eternal wait until a long-suffering relative finally dies. This may not sound funny, but Corkins manages to pull it off with perfect comic timing. In Tandem has an intimate atmosphere, and Chris Flieller also deserves credit for a set design that it resembles a slightly frayed living room and not a lamp repair shop. The lamps are artfully incorporated into the environment, without making themselves overly prominent. Neville’s script will invariably evoke the audience’s memories of their own long-dead relatives. And it begs the question: When I’m gone, how will I be remembered? That’s a sobering thought, and Neville does an artful job of reminding us of this.
