BWW Reviews: FAILURE: A LOVE STORY

The idea of love and what is meant to come of it usually implies a happy ending for the woman who falls in love with her soul-mate, or for the man who couldn't imagine a life without the daily practice of bestowing affection upon his beloved. Love is meant to bring out the best in people and allow them to flourish, implying that a greater and more joyous future is to come because fate has somehow brought them together for just such a reason: to be happy.

What happens, though, when the concept of fate seems to be a bit more of an interference than it is a means of bringing people together towards the happiness they so desire? What is to be expected when every effort of moving forward and bringing love back into one's life becomes such an onerous task, such a fruitless endeavor that the concept of love becomes a personally unreachable goal? In what is both a fairly comical yet rather somber telling of a man who falls in love with three sisters and is perpetually left alone once each meets her untimely end, Failure: A Love Story triumphantly kicks off Cape Rep's 2015 season and will no doubt leave its audiences thinking that the only failure to be found in this show is solely found in its name.

Directed by Maura Hanlon*, Philip Dawkins' work has its regional premier at Cape Rep and makes a splendid start to what will undoubtedly be a successful season. Failure tells the story of a family plagued by tragic happenings that typically result in death. From the very beginning the Fail family, as they come to be called, has experience after experience with inexplicable occurrences from which they never come back. As the actors on stage come together to explain from the start the unfortunate circumstance which will befall the family, the audience gets the uncanny feeling that what is to come cannot be mere coincidence, but more so as if fate is extending a bit too strong a hand into the matter of their lives.

The sisters who, as the audience first sees them, have become heirs of a clock-work company started by their deceased parents; the plot takes off when they soon come into contact with Mortimer Mortimer, a dapper young man apparently "named after himself" whose essential being becomes entwined in that of each woman. From the start and simply by being there does he almost effortlessly manage (truly, it seems that he simply falls into each circumstance he finds himself in with each of the three sisters...and their brother, who doesn't do very well around people) to join each on her journey towards an untimely end. As each sister is taken from him in ways disclosed at the start of the play, Mortimer Mortimer is forced on this almost existential road-trip, at the end hardly even knowing if he is in control of his own life.

As the theme of time is played upon as a major theme throughout Dawkins' play, there is so much to be said about how time is measured and perceived so differently as each character experiences some sort of demise. The audience is given first-hand knowledge of what will happen in the scenes to come before any malady befalls the family. As each actor rapidly blurts out the Fail family's history, rapidly firing off facts and taking over where one person left off that the whole telling of their story seems a sort of attraction or auction to see how quickly they can get attention in the telling of their story, the audience begins to understand what the play is actually emphasizing in its mechanics. There is such effort to make a presentation of this telling that the play almost takes on a sort of comedic nature (it is in fact considered a comedy), each actor pretending to be he or she whom they speak of at some point. Only certain characters are assigned one person to represent them, so an entire story with numerous people is essentially being told on stage using only what is available in the present: a bunch of beyond talented actors who all have one common goal: to convey to the audience a story of unexplained failure.

Although, this play stresses not the end, the culmination of all that happens to the Fail family and him associated with them, but instead the means of getting to that end and how significant each moment leading to that end is, regardless of whether or not these moments are undoubtedly numbered. The idea that each moment measured by a clock's tick or gong (as there are many in this show) knowingly leads towards something bad makes the process of getting there all the more important, and having this as the concept of this play is sheer brilliance.

As each actor jumps in and presents what he or she knows about the family, suddenly becoming anything or anyone from one of the sisters to their brother John N's snake Moses, this entire show takes so much to pull off, and this wonderful cast goes beyond that to make a sad story eerie, fascinating and suspenseful all at once. There aren't any set changes, making past, present and future come alive before the audience in one gigantic gulp, while the audience's suspension of belief is in full swing here, making it believe that the rope one character has wrapped around her turns her into a threatening snake, while others break out into the same sad song that is sung each time something sad occurs. There is so much going on with this show, but it all works so, so well.

I believe that the audience will not only be taken back by how much work and dedication this cast puts into making this show amazing, but also by the basic idea of what this play represents. It is so unlike many other "entertaining" shows, as it is simple in its telling of a family plagued by an unfortunate series of events that and the emphasis placed on how uncanny the collective circumstance is, but the concept of it is so complex and beautiful that it leaves on feeling not bad for what happens to each character, but more so about how much time has passed without the ability to change any of what happens. It leaves the audience feeling sort of helpless but also somewhat accepting of what happens to these characters, and interesting enough ends with two characters, one of which is still not good with people, in the care of each other's company and ironically alone, but alone together in their quest to find someone with whom they can spend the rest of their lives.

That is the basis of time anyway, isn't it? It is spent searching for ways to make life seem a little less tedious, consumed by a need to feel useful and worthwhile - to feel overjoyed by the concept of being alive and never wishing for it to end. Well, life definitely does end, but how that time is spent truly makes a world of difference.

To say a bit about the tremendous acting in this play, each actor brings something different to the play. Whether referring to Gerty (Holly Erin McCarthy), Jenny June (Liz Tancredi, whom I recognize from last year's absolute hit One Man, Two Guvnors and was again equally impressed) and Nelly (Meghan Magrath), their three times over "almost brother-in-law" (Jonathan C. Whitney - also a recognizable talent!), the reclusive brother (Sam Gillam) or those who play "everything else" and represent a myriad of different people (the wonderful Jared Hagen and Andrew Ford), they are each able to grasp the essence of who they represent so well, that even though one sister may double as her brother's starving, jaded parakeet, it is entirely in sync with the story they are trying to tell, making this play both incredibly realistic and somber it its nature but also somewhat wacky and just plain different to make it something I have not seen before on stage. To say that this play is well done is definitely an understatement, and everyone should definitely make an effort to go and see it before it closes. Unfortunately the show, like the life of each sister does have an expiration date, so go and see it before it is no more.

Failure: A Love Story began performances on May 7th and will continue thru June 7th. All performances are held at Cape Rep's Indoor Theater, located at 3299 Rte. 6A in Brewster. The schedule is as follows: Wednesdays and Thursdays @ 7:00, Fridays and Saturdays @ 8:00 and Sundays at 2:00. Tickets may be purchased by either visiting the box office or caperep.org, or by calling the box office at (508) 896.1888. Tickets are $28, and group rates/student rush tickets are also available.

Enjoy the show!

Photo Credit: Bob Tucker/Focalpoint Studio

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