| . | 09/09/2009
Oohrah!
By: Simon Saltzman
Cassie Beck and Jennifer Mudge (photo credit: Ari Mintz)
It’s good to be reminded every now and then that a playwright from the South isn’t obliged or compelled to reflect the more gothic aspects or eccentric images of its population. Playwright Bekah Brunstsetter has her roots in the South (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), but she also has a wonderful grasp of the funny and sad realities of contemporary military families. Although Brunstetter has three brothers who are or were in the Marines, the inspiration behind Oohrah! only sets the stage for a very fine domestic comedy with complex, emotionally conflicted characters, all of whom are incisively etched. Set in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a home to one of the South’s largest military bases, Oohrah! gets its title from the familiar Marine greeting.
When Ron (Darren Goldstein), a Captain in the US Army, returns to his wife and home in Fayetteville, North Carolina after his second and final if uneventful tour in Iraq, he finds himself suddenly engaged in an unexpected battle of wills and personalities. In his absence, and weary of Ron’s lengthy deployments, his pretty, high-strung wife Sara (Jennifer Mudge) has become somewhat obsessive and compulsive about her home. Although Ron has yet to settle in and consider his own options, Sara presses him to get a job at Krispy Kreme, as well as to begin some major home improvements.
Ron also isn’t terribly pleased to find Sara’s younger sister Abby (Cassie Beck) living in their home. Although Abby, a sexually antsy stewardess, is engaged to marry Christopher (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), an airport security guard, she doubts if she is really in love with him. Her doubts are confirmed when she meets and invites Chip (Maximilian Osinkski), a good-looking young marine to the house for dinner. Ron and Sara also have to contend with their 14 year old daughter Lacey (Sami Gayle) who idolizes her father, dreams of becoming a marine, wears fatigues and has cut her hair short. Then there is Sara and Abby’s aged grandfather Pop Pop (JR Horne), a Navy veteran who suffers from dementia and feels compelled to add his nostalgic ramblings amidst the other disclosures and issues at hand.
Less driven by plot than by its comically poignant characters, Oohrah! delivers a pleasurable and satisfying look at people relegated by social strata, as well as by patriotic fervor, to a life style that is almost site-specific. If the actors, under the skilled direction of Evan Cabnet, are able to deliver performances that more than define their respective characters, it is because Brunstetter’s has an ear for the clearly localized vernacular, as well as a compassionate consideration of these people – – – who they are and what they need.
Perhaps Sara is the most difficult character with whom we can empathize. Yet the performance by Mudge, as a woman consumed by neediness and also blind to her husband’s growing unhappiness, is ripe with unnerving neurotic energy. Beck is terrific as the lusty Abby, who has no qualms about seducing the marine and also going on with her wedding plans. Give Goldstein a captain’s stripes for his strong and sensitive performance as Ron.
Gayle, who is fondly remembered as Baby June in the last revival of Gypsy with Patti LuPone, gives a spirited performance as the pubescent Lacey, who races about the house in faux combat with a broom gun. There is a dark and unsettling side to Chip and Osinski brings this to the surface in a surprising and terrifying denouement. Verbrugghe is both pathetic and funny as Christopher, who, because he is uncompromisingly in love with Abby, refuses to acknowledge what he sees with his own eyes. A disarmingly dim-witted soliloquy in which Christopher reviews the reasons why he loves Abby is hilarious and given a double irony as at that very moment she is making out with the marine. Horne is winning as he recalls his exploits in the Navy as well as in his extended moments of dementia.
Although Although Oohrah! is not Brunstetter’s first play, it is the first to be produced Off Broadway. More important than the fact that she is a relatively new voice in dramatic literature is that she has written a splendid play about the South that is as far from Tennessee Williams or Beth Henley as you can get. Oohrah! gives the new season on or off Broadway a great send-off. The production has a fine and flexible setting by Lee Savage that allows smooth transitions from airport, to kitchen, to rifle range.
Oohrah! (limited engagement through September 27 unless extended)
Atlantic Theater Company Stage II, 330 West 16th Street
For tickets ($45) call (212) 279 - 4200
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