Review: Portland Stage Celebrates 50th Season with Monica Wood's SAINT DAD

Portland Stage opens its fiftieth season with a warm, witty, insightful new play by one of Maine’s most original voices, Monica Wood, in a stylish production directed by Sally Wood.  Portland Stage’s commitment to new work has been an enduring one, and surely one of the theatre’s brightest new endeavors has been to nurture the playwrighting talents of Monica Wood.  Her latest work, SAINT DAD, is a polished and poignant play about the intersection of people from two very different worlds brought together by the sale of a family camp in rural Maine and the journey they take individually and collectively to reach some transformative epiphanies.

Like her first play, PAPERMAKER, SAINT DAD is set in western Maine amid the hard-working, plain-speaking folks who work in the mills and follow generations-old traditions of small-town life.  Wood addresses the issues of the changing definitions of home, the gentrifying of small towns, the flight to the cities of the young and educated.  With piquant humor and deep empathy for all her characters, Wood examines the Culture Clash between wealthy city folks “from away” and native Mainers.  Her dialogue is smart and pitch-perfect in capturing the different milieux of her characters, and she is able to weave a credible interplay among them.

Sally Wood’s direction is lively, perfectly paced, and manages to be remarkably kinetic for a play set largely  indoors in one room. Set Designer Anita Stewart supplies the very handsome interior of the Casey family’s now-renovated camp, with bleached wood flooring, complemented by warm toned darker paneling and the bold angles of a stone fireplace dominating the room.  Gregg Carville’s naturalistic lighting design subtly charts the passage of time from day to evening and conjures up the interior and exterior of the property.  Sound Designer Seth Asa Sengel provides the underscoring for the scene transitions and the sound effects that give a palpable sense of the lakeside place.  Michelle Handley’s costumes are understated, but impeccable in conveying character.  Meg Lydon serves as the capable Stage Manager.

The cast works together beautifully as an ensemble.  Pilar Witherspoon does a fine job of portraying Leona Williams’ city sophistication, her elegant tastes, her initially tone-deaf response to the Caseys, and her alienation from her daughter, as well as her gradual transformation into someone who learns by listening. Emily Upton, as the rebellious Thomasina Williams, conveys her character’s protective armor and her inner vulnerability. Liam Craig is winningly blunt as Bud Casey, using his delightfully sarcastic wit to balance his sisters’ views.  Moira Driscoll gives a warmly understated performance as Denise Thibodeau, the oldest Casey sibling, whose acceptance of life’s curved balls and her motherly care for her siblings are the family ballast. Jenny Woodward is the high strung, animated Suzanne Casey, whose hyper energetic positivity gradually unravels into a confession and then a transformative moment that has a touch of divinity in it. Patrick O’Brien, in his brief appearance as the neighbor Chummy O’Brien, brings a warm, folksy wisdom to the mix and becomes the catalyst for bringing together the different personalities.

When the company speaks (not without a touch of whimsy, but also with sincerity) of a miracle in the closing moments of the show, one cannot help but feel that that miracle has already transpired over the course of the play’s afternoon and evening.  And it has occurred because the characters have been listening to each other. Telling their stories with candor and revealing their unvarnished experiences, they have discovered a common humanity.  The differences are not erased, but the groundwork for communication and caring have been established. 

Portland Stage is to be congratulated not only on its work in building new repertoire, but for helping to nurture brilliant writers like Monica Wood who have found their stage voices by working with the company and whose plays are gifts to Maine’s contributions to American theatre.

 

Photo courtesy of Portland Stage

SAINT DAD runs at Portland Stage, 25 A Forest Avenue, Portland, ME from October 25-November 19, 2023  www.portlandstage.org  207-774-0465

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