Review: Music City Theatre Company's 4000 MILES

It's a fact of life that when someone you love or to whom you are close dies, you will experience the need to have sex - in other words, you're really horny despite your sense of loss and despair - in the body's effort to prove to you that you're still potent, but more importantly that you are still alive. I speak from personal experience: when my partner died suddenly and unexpectedly, I had to break the news to our bug guy, who made his regularly scheduled visit to our house just two days after the funeral. The bug guy (who was a friend of ours, but ignorant of my partner's passing) broke down in tears upon hearing the news and I embraced him, only to discover that I had the big pants.

"I am the most reprehensible person in the history of the world," I told myself. "Getting the big pants while hugging the bug guy."

Surviving the death of a loved one may, in fact, be the most guilt-inducing experience in life. Why did he/she have to die while you go on living? There is no easy answer, the feelings of guilt seemingly last forever (they just become more manageable) and if you were there when death occurred, you are faced with overwhelming emotion that most people are unable to cope with, despite all the best efforts.

All of this is to explain why Leo Joseph-Connell, the protagonist of Amy Herzog's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play 4,000 Miles, shows up at 3 a.m. at his Grandmother Vera's apartment in the West Village of New York City, longing to renew a connection to someone who has known him since birth and who will help him find balance in his life once again, whether he admits that or not. After all, the older woman at 92 must be far wiser and more adept at dealing with the realities of life than a 21-year-old wanderer in search of solace.

When the two get high together one night, Leo confesses that, since the horrific accident in which he lost a beloved friend, he's hornier than he's ever been. Smoking pot with your grandma may be no big deal in this day and age (particularly when Gram is a not-so-latent Communist), but talking about your need to have sex or your girlfriend's oddly shaped vagina is one side-effect I'm happy to have never experienced - give us the munchies anytime.

Now onstage through Saturday, April 9, at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater in the 12th production from Bradley Moore's Music City Theatre Company, 4,000 Miles is a sometimes funny, sometimes heartrending family drama that's a superbly written 90 minutes of reality illuminated by the bright light that always accompanies hindsight (playwright Herzog reportedly based the character of Vera upon her own grandmother).

The story of Leo and Vera is vividly brought to life by director Moore and his four-person cast - led by his creative muse, actor Taylor Novak, with whom he has worked almost exclusively over the past year - and 4,000 Miles moves at a knowingly graceful pace, allowing us as much insight as possible into the relationship between Leo and Vera. As the pair grow closer to each other, we see beyond the window-dressing that would have rendered 4,000 Miles a mere update of The Odd Couple, with less cigar smoking and fewer crumpled newspapers strewn about Vera's stylish apartment (designed by Novak, who also adds the title of "technical director" to his biography in the show's playbill). Moore exercises restraint in his presentation of the script, avoiding stagey theatrics for a more effective and realistic tone onstage, which elicits stronger performances from his ensemble of actors.

In another example of the production's commendable design aesthetic, Austin Olive's expressive lighting design helps to underscore the story told in Herzog's script and creates an evocative sense of time and place in the process.

As a result of Moore's steady and even-handed direction, each of the play's leading characters are easily accessible, their very humanity expressed through deed and action, which makes them easily recognizable, even as they remain intriguingly watchable. Novak's Leo is startlingly present - the actor has such stage presence that you cannot help but watch him, wondering how seamlessly he moves from one character to the next, one play to the next - as he lets us see the story of Leo's journey (both as a young man evolving into a responsible adult, as a dreamer becoming a realist or through his literal cross-country journey, in which a horrifying accident has left him questioning his choices in life) unspool, if you will, onstage in an earnest, yet sweetly moving, manner. Novak's Leo is far too clean-cut and well-dressed (Christen Heilman's costumes are terrific, nonetheless) to be mistaken for a hippie, as he proclaims himself to be, but that's a mere quibble in response to a near-perfect performance.

The highlight of Novak's nuanced performance comes about three-quarters through the play: A monologue in which he reveals the details of the cross-country accident involving his best friend Micah which has sent him reeling, both emotionally and philosophically, and in search of the sense of belonging to something, anything, that is represented by his relationship with Vera.

Terry Occhiogrosso is faced with a more difficult assignment in 4,000 Miles, playing the 91-year-old grandmother who remains a fiery Communist, decades after that particular political bent has passed from current fashion. Occhiogrosso's Vera doesn't particularly seem that much older from her chronological age offstage, but she's likable and focused enough to engage her audience throughout the show's playing time. Her stooped shoulders and grey wig notwithstanding, she portrays a vital personage as the elderly Vera, who is ever-present in the moment and is believable in her love and concern for her dreamy grandson.

Novak and Occhiogrosso are given scene-stealing support from two actresses - the fully-committed Britt Byrd as Bec, Leo's conflicted and uncertain girlfriend; and the versatile Cate Jo, who shines as Amanda, a young Chinese-American student at Parsons, whom Leo meets at a bar - who bring much energy to the leisurely pace of the action that transpires inside Vera's apartment.

• 4,000 Miles. By Amy Herzog. Directed by Bradley Moore. Presented at Darkhorse Theater, Nashville. Through April 9. For tickets, go to www.mctc.ticketleap.com. Running time: 90 minutes (with no intermission).

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