Trick or Treat

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The lit pumpkin on a ledge in the living room aptly suits the title of Trick or Treat, a new play by Jack Neary. But despite the skeleton positioned on yet another shelf, the play’s title refers to more than just Halloween, as the plot that unfolds is full of reversals and shocking developments that keep tricking you into thinking that you know what’s going on, and treating you to some characters who don’t. It isn’t until the very end that you apprehend a story you thought you were following all along. There are startling surprises all along the way.

To add that the tale involves two different murders isn’t revealing too much, since at least one of them is divulged at the very beginning. That’s when Johnny Moynihan calls his daughter Claire and asks her to come over. He has a hard time explaining, at first, that he killed her mother–who was only 64, but had Alzheimer’s–a couple hours ago, and he tries to plead his innocence by regularly referring to Kevorkian, the euthanasia enthusiast. What to do, but call Claire’s brother Teddy, who is a cop that’s about to become a police chief, like his paternal grandfather was. Poor Johnny never transcended to anything more than traffic cop.

In the meantime, Teddy’s ex, Hannah, pops in and refuses to leave for quite a while, despite everyone asking her, “Why are you here?” Well, the outsider to the Moynihan clan is there as a playwright’s convenient way of filling in a lot of complex exposition.

As smart and carefully constructed as Trick or Treat is, the play gives new meaning to any notion of contrivance. Indeed, long before we meet Teddy, we’re prepared that he has quite a “temper,” and it’s his temper that the story ultimately hinges on, going back to when he was a little boy. He also demonstrates that temper early on, shortly after Teddy arrives and pushes Hannah on the steps. As Hannah responds, “This is a family of animals,” prompting Johnny to lunge at her and growl like one.

As designed with realistic perfection by Michael Ganio, the Moynihans’ living room features a stack of old LP’s, an afghan blanket on the sofa, an organ, an uncompleted jigsaw puzzle on a table, and a stairwell that consumes much of the space. The play is also directed by Carol Dunne with a velocity that somehow compensates for the contrivances, making it all seem real. Realistic too are all of the performers, with Gordon Clapp excelling as a sometimes mumbling and bumbling Johnny; but then, Johnny is hiding more than one secret from most of the rest of the characters, as well as from us. Jenni Putney is equally natural as the baffled Claire, and then there’s David Mason’s menacing Teddy. Mason is suitably frightening with his every move.

Kathy McCafferty is a saucy and savvy Hannah, with red hair and a green sweater leaving no doubt that she, too, is Irish. Without revealing who her character is, Kathy Manfre is a plaintive Nancy, who doesn’t appear until the end of Act I. In the second act, she has constantly shaking, palsied hands, and asks, “Do I still have Alzheimer’s?” And then there are all the offstage trick-or-treaters who keep on interrupting the action, especially in the beginning, via the sound effects of Ben Montmagny, giving the disembodied voices some real heft and, there’s that word again, some realism.

Ganio’s costumes are as natural as one would expect, and Tyler M. Perry’s lighting design is always on target, illuminating a play that has been designed in every particular, begging the question, where exactly are the surprises. It’s well written, but ultimately far too pat to be convincing.

Trick or Treat (through February 24, 2019)

Northern Stage

Theater A at 59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 646-892-7999 or visit http://www.59e59.org

Running time: one hour and 40 minutes including one intermission