Review: THE HOMECOMING at North Coast Repertory Theatre

THE HOMECOMING now playing through March 27th at North Coast Repertory Theatre explores family relationships, politics, and power in an impactful presentation. This play features a top-notch ensemble that makes the twists and turns the family drama takes to feel as if they were fated all along.

The story opens in the North London family, the father Max (Frank Corrado) is a former butcher who has raised sons Teddy (Bruce Turk), Lenny (Richard Baird), and Joey (Justin Gordon) in this house. Max's brother Sam (James Newcomb) lives there as well. The lack of a female touch on the house and the occupants is clear as they all butt heads and jockey for position.

That all changes when Teddy comes home after many years away as a professor of philosophy in America, and brings his wife Ruth (Melanie Lora) with him.

In an all male world, where every exchange, no matter how seemingly banal, is actually just part of a never ending domestic battle. Ruth's cool and composed energy, and her gender, throw enough confusion into the family dynamic for the power to be open for grabs.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Corrado bringing bluster and charm as Max, Baird is cunning as the calculating and always hovering and watching Lenny. Gordon's Joey is sweet and needy, the most vulnerable of the clan and the first domino open to falling in line.

Newcomb's Sam, may seem the most sympathetic of them all, but he still wages war - just with more pointed verbal daggers as the most vulnerable spots, like Max's late wife Jesse.

Turk as Teddy is excellent as the returning and seemingly more bookish brother, but shows he's as sharp and vicious at this family game as any of them, just in a more subtle way.

Lora is wonderful as the composed Ruth, who quickly realizes and makes the most of the opportunity the household presents. Varying in treating them each as you would small children, to the grown men they are, she reads the room and the person before speaking or making her next move.

The ending is deliberately ambiguous - in the end who really has the power? Do they know what they have traded to acquire it? I have thoughts but to say more would give it all away.

THE HOMECOMING is deliberately confrontational, unsettling, and very darkly funny. As the saying goes "in a world full of locked doors the man who holds the key is King." After watching the show be sure to tell me who you think is wearing the crown.

How to get tickets

THE HOMECOMING is playing at North Coast Repertory Theatre through March 27th. Go to northcoastrep.org for ticket and showtimes.

Photo Credit: The cast of THE HOMECOMING at North Coast Rep: (from left) Bruce Turk, Justin Gordon, Richard Baird, James Newcomb, Melanie Lora and Frank Corrado.(Courtesy photo by Aaron Rumley)

To post a comment, you must register and login.