BWW Reviews: Portland Players Gives Sensitive Reading of BOYS NEXT DOOR

Portland Players has mounted a sensitive and thought-provoking production of Tom Griffin's 1988 play, Boys Next Door, about four colorful residents of a group communal home and their social worker. Griffin's work deals perceptively and sympathetically with the limitations and hopes of his characters, their skewed realities and their often hilarious interactions. In the person of Jack, the burned-out, yet compassionate counselor, the playwright is able to help the audience gain insight into the world of these mentally challenged adults and to appreciate their humanity.

Griffin's strengths as a playwright are his dialogue, peppered with brilliant non sequiturs and absurdities that bring both laughter and tears, and his ability to create characters that are both maddening and endearing. At two-and-one-half hours, the play might benefit from a little trimming, though Portland Players' production never seems to lag.

This is due in large measure to the skillful direction of Charlie Marenghi, who helps his actors draw five complex portraits, moves the action along with a deft hand, and offers the audience so many winning and wistful moments - the pursuit of the rat, the tender and graceful dance that ends Act I, Lucien's penetrating soliloquy at his state hearing - to name just a few. All five principals give virtuoso performances. Jaimie Schwartz physicalizes and articulates Arnold's paranoid, obsessive behavior brilliantly. Joe Swenson makes a sweet, bearish, Lucien P. Smith whose brain, Jack says, is "somewhere between age five and an oyster." Adam Gary Normand plays the gigantic Norman, who despite his arrested development, is both loveable and capable of loving. Anthony Marvin offers an appropriate contrast as the young schizophrenic Barry, who is cool and bossy while living in his fantasy world of golf, but who crashes piteously when confronted by his brutal father. Scott Patashnik makes a fine foil as Jack, irritated and patient by turns, longing to make his escape, but torn by the claims these men have made on his heart.

The supporting cast is also accomplished. Allison McCann turns in an especially winning performance as Sheila, another of the Center's residents, who has a crush on Norman; Bill McCue makes the most of his brief appearance as Barry's neglectful and harsh father; Paul J. Bell and Katherine Depangher each make their mark in two trios of cameos.

The excellent, realistic set designed by Marenghi and dressed by Paul Bell, depicting the interior of the group home, is, as Sheila repeatedly terms, it appropriately "cozy" and creates the slightly shabby yet homey context. The decision to play scenes that are set elsewhere either on the two far ends of the stage or within the confines of this space redefined only by lighting, is a wise one in terms of moving the action. Michaela Wirth's lighting design facilitates these shifts nicely, though due no doubt to the technical limitations of an older electrical system, the various crossfades separating Griffin's sometimes extremely short scenes are always a jot slower than one would wish. Samuel Rinaldi contributes a clean, focused sound design, replete with music of the period and other requisite effects.

Each season, Portland Players programs one straight work, and the choice of Boys Next Door is both original and even a little daring. Griffin's play, though occasionally dated in terminology and psycho-medical speak, remains relevant and universal. It speaks often with a raw and compelling honesty - and, yes, with considerable humor and charm - about human needs, aspirations, and responsibility. Kudos to the company for a stirring theatrical experience!

Photos Courtesy of Portland Players, Woody Leland photographer

Boys Next Door runs March 27-April 12, 2015, at Portland Players, 420 Coittage Rd., South Portland, ME 207-7998-7337 www.portlandplayers.org

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