The Best We Could (A Family Tragedy)

Emily Feldman’s The Best We Could (a family tragedy), at Manhattan Theater Club’s Off-Broadway City Center Stage I, is performed on a bare stage and delivers an emotional wallop despite its spareness. Feldman’s telling of her story of a father-daughter road trip is influenced by Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, with a Stage Manager narrating the action, playing supporting parts, and acting as God-like figure controlling the characters. (Best is even closer to Wilder’s one-act The Happy Journey to Camden to Trenton, which also features a Stage Manager, bare stage, and involves a family auto sojourn.)

Just as Wilder wrote about the universality in the everyday, Feldman presents a seemingly ordinary story filled with apparently mundane details which reveals the joys and despair of the human experience. Ella (moving Aya Cash) is a disorganized but loving daughter driving cross-country with her eccentric dad Lou (touchingly paternal Frank Wood) to pick up a rescue dog replacement for a recently departed and much adored pet. Along the way, they visit Lou’s best friend Marc (affable Brian D. Coats) who may be able to help Lou re-enter the work force after a long hiatus. There are numerous funny scenes with Lou speaking to total strangers (all played by the versatile Maureen Sebastian as the  Stage Manager figure, called Maps), much to Ella’s embarrassment. We also flashback and forward to vignettes with Ella’s mom Peg (an amusingly sharp-edged Constance Shulman) who is demanding she and Lou sell the house and move into a smaller space. 

Feldman creates a carefully observed portrait of modern-day America as Ella’s loose, unstructured lifestyle clashes with her parents’ strict reliance on one’s employment providing your identity. When Ella learns the real reason for Lou’s joblessness, their relationship fractures and the subtitle becomes alarmingly real. (Sebastian is especially intense as a former co-worker of Lou’s.)

Daniel Aukin’s direction is subtle but hits the comic moments just right, delivering a perfect balance between humor and pathos. 
Frank Wood, Constance Shulman, Aya Cash in The Best We Could (a family tragedy).

As with Broadway’s current A Doll’s House revival, The Best We Could demonstrates that with the right cast, play and director, all that’s needed is two planks and a passion for absorbing theater.