Playwright: Andrea Stolowitz
At: Rivendell Theatre Ensemble at Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Phone: (773) 871-3000; $18
Runs through: April 4
First off, it's not KAI-ro, as in Egypt, but KAY-ro—the riverfront town in Illinois that spelled freedom for Huck Finn and Jim, but whose raft drifted past it unawares, a mishap nearly sealing their doom. But while Mark Twain's novel of fraternal loyalty casts its shadow over the friends in Andrea Stolowitz' exploration of family dynamics, the progress of their bonding only serves to illustrate its underlying theme—namely, a critique of matriarchs who hire strangers to care for their elderly, and then become resentful when these servants do their jobs too well.
At first meeting, Rose is the most unsympathetic parent since The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Though far from senile, she is what the social service agencies call a 'screamer,' given to tantrums and night panics. The new caregiver is Winsome, the most self-assured domestic employee since Mary Poppins. With capable efficiency, she persuades Rose to abandon her infantile ways and take an interest in life's activities. Soon the women are getting on famously. So much, in fact, that Rose's daughter Lydia, the most clueless shrink since Agnes Of God, grows jealous and, one fatal day, invokes her power to separate the two companions.
Commercial savvy would mandate playing Rose and Winsome for cuddly odd-couple laughs, and Lydia as a Miss Hannigan-style villainess. Director Kimberly Senior shows compassion toward Stolowitz' characters by rejecting this easy route, however, instead instructing her actors to leave us room for doubt within the relationships unfolding onstage. When Lydia voices suspicions of Winsome's motives, is the evil all in her own imagination? Or is the latter's innocence all in ours?
Ora Jones delivers another superlative performance in the role of Winsome, projecting just enough mystery to allow us to impose our own interpretation on her actions. Tasha Anne James likewise finds subtle grace notes in the thankless role of Lydia, while Jane Galloway Heitz makes us applaud Rose's rehabilitation even as we sense trouble ahead. Ultimately, the question of whose side we take in the conflict comes down to whom we LIKE better, a question not easily answered when we have reason to like them all.