Get Buzzed at New England Premiere of 'Humble Boy'

Humble Boy

By Charlotte Jones

Director, Diego Arciniegas; Set design, Dahlia Al-Habieli; Lighting Design, Jeff Adelberg; Original Music Composed by Simon Slater; Production Management & Sound Design, John Doerschuk; Master Electrician, Victoria Sweetzer; Costume Coordinator, Susanne Nitter; Stage Management, Nerys Powell

CAST: Felix Humble, Tom O'Keefe; Mercy Lott, Nancy E. Carroll; Flora Humble, Stephanie Clayman; Jim the Gardener, Dafydd Rees; George Pye, Nigel Gore; Rosie Pye, Claire Warden

Performances through May 2 @ Publick Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts

Box Office 617-933-8600 or www.bostontheatrescene.com

One of the distinctions of the cozy Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts is that upon entering the space, you step through the looking glass into the world of the play, as imagined by the set designer. For the Publick Theatre's New England premiere of Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Dahlia Al-Habieli has pulled out all the stops to create an English country garden replete with bloom-filled flowerpots, a rough-hewn trellis draped with lilacs, and an inviting hammock. Branches laden with real apples overhang the flagstone patio, suggesting an Eden-like paradise.

However, all is not bliss in the Humble home where beekeeper father James has recently met his demise, mother Flora is not your typical grieving widow, and theoretical physicist son Felix's return from Cambridge has created quite a buzz. Much to his chagrin, Flora has taken up with boorish neighbor George Pye, whose daughter Rosie was formerly Felix's girlfriend. Mercy Lott, mother's friend and adulator, tries to serve as mediator, and Jim the gardener adds a quiet voice of reason to the proceedings. Unseen as they are, the spirit (and occasional drone) of the bees hovers, their phantom presence inflicting strategic emotional stings.

Humble Boy is a comedy about a family tragedy, with shades of Hamlet and The Jerry Springer Show, including a ghost, a fistfight, and potential suicide. As Artistic Director Diego Arciniegas says, it is an "intimate, language-driven play" in which the characters have distinct personalities. He does a masterful job of directing his cast to carve out the shape of each of them, as well as mining the laughs and turning the small stage into a beehive (sorry!) of activity.

Tom O'Keefe (Felix) and Stephanie Clayman (Flora) share an intense chemistry as they battle for emotional control in their dysfunctional child-parent relationship. Wearing ill-fitting and unstylish clothing, O'Keefe is fidgety and awkward, stuttering on his 'b's while he holds fast to the honey pot containing his father's ashes. He establishes Felix as a confused, immature genius who relishes his role as victim, and then shows some growth through his encounters with his mother and Rosie as he gradually comes to terms with his father's death. Clayman leaves no doubt as to who is the queen bee in this swarm, commanding attention from the moment she first steps onstage. With her arms folded across her chest and wearing dark glasses to hide the bruises from Flora's recent rhinoplasty, her body language and icy, dripping tone strike fear in the hearts of those around her. The phrase "she who must be obeyed" comes to mind to describe her portrayal of this overbearing, unsympathetic, and entitled woman. Still, Clayman makes Flora's romantic side plausible when she pairs with the wonderful Nigel Gore as George. Gore plays the loud and crude aspects of his personality to the humorous hilt, but it is his ability to bring out the underlying opposite traits of menace and warmth that take George from caricature to character.

Nancy E. Carroll breathes life into mousey Mercy Lott, the sad woman who observes the world and the Humbles from the sidelines. During a conversation with Felix when he voices his fear of walking past the love of his life, she responds, "Well, we've all done that," but Carroll says so much more with the slump of her shoulders and the faraway look in her eyes. In the second act, she has two crowning moments when she seasons the soup for an alfresco luncheon and, after an enervating and protracted family squabble, offers the grace for the meal that no one wants to eat with her trademark delicious deadpan delivery.

Although she doesn't physically appear until scene four, Rosie Pye's aura invades the feelings of the other characters before she arrives. Claire Warden shows up as Rosie, grabs an apple, and wanders about the courtyard, taking it all in, while we wonder what she's about. Her strength and confidence bowl Felix over, especially when she makes it abundantly clear that attaining motherhood has totally changed her outlook and given her life single-minded purpose. Jim the Gardener (Dafydd Rees) is more self-effacing. He putters about the courtyard with a Zen-like attitude, reciting words of encouragement and philosophical tidbits to Felix, a guardian angel of sorts.

Felix also has a single-minded purpose: searching for a unified "Theory of Everything," to give order to the universe, as well as to the chaos in his own life. However, coming home creates complications when he butts heads with his mother's agenda (it's all about her) and must unexpectedly struggle against the laws of attraction with Rosie. Jones has written an intelligent comedy that nicely parallels science and relationships, shows the frailties of the human condition, and emphasizes the certainty of renewal in nature.

There are some surprises in store as the summer and the play draw to an end. When Felix learns that his father achieved a small degree of immortality by discovering a new species of bee just before his death, he willfully informs his mother that she is the namesake. This bit of knowledge has a transforming effect on Flora, resulting in several plot points that I won't reveal. However, Mother Humble has been totally unsentimental throughout the story and neither this turnabout nor a subsequent moment of tenderness with her son ring true. I think it is a mistake for the playwright to try to tie up all of the messy, loose ends of this dysfunctional world that she so lovingly created, as if to imply that there really is order and stability in everything in the universe. Jones makes a strong case for the theory that, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home, no matter how dysfunctional, and the audience buys into it. I say leave bad enough alone.

 

Photo: Tom O'Keefe (Felix) and Dafydd Rees (Jim)

 

 

 

  

  

  

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