Comfort really isn’t a comfortable play. Coming from the pen of Neil LaBute, that shouldn’t surprise us. LaBute always looks at the uncomfortable parts of human nature, and his newest play falls right into line. This, written before COVID and having its world premiere at St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s home base, the Gaslight Theater, is a particularly remarkable piece of work, giving us human pathology with a near-singular quality of wickedness. It’s a play that asks a lot of its two actors. Kari Ely and Spencer Sickmann deliver in spades.
Iris (Ely) has very little about her that’s sympathetic. She’s a writer with a fabulous career who believes she deserves every bit of it. She disdains anyone who isn’t perfect. That includes about everyone except herself. It particularly includes her son and his father, whom she divorced as soon as the royalty checks began. She has, to use an old Flannery O’Connor line, no pleasure but in meanness. Iris makes me think about Tennessee Williams going to work on the character of Lady Macbeth
Iris repeatedly says that she hated being a wife and a mother, and was glad custody of their son Cal (Sickmann) went to her ex-husband, a high school teacher who wrote a little himself. Is it any surprise that Cal turned out to have a tongue far beyond the serpent’s tooth? She frequently brings up the money she’s given him for various things and how whatever he tries to do, he’s not enough of a success.
She excuses her nasty remarks by saying she’s “being honest”. So is Cal when she pushes his buttons – those ones she installed herself. The battle ebbs and flows. He tries to give as good as he takes, but Iris is made of iron. It’s amazing seeing the vitriol come out of a suburban matron with a polite, well-modulated voice – if Iris is iron, Ely playing her is steel. Sickmann, though, holds his ground, and the battle remains joined. There are splendid performances, rough and tough, yet nuanced.
Annamaria Pileggi directed the play – one has the feeling it might be more like being an orchestra conductor, considering the sweep of emotion, and keeps thing just as tight as they ought to be. Patrick Huber’s set and lighting design fit right in, the upper-class home of someone who didn’t care about homemaking but could afford to hire a decorator.
The script will almost certainly undergo more work before it hits any boards in New York, and it could use some tightening. But it’s very close to the precipice of greatness, aided by the excellent work of Ely and Sickmann, and Iris could well be one of those roles that actress itch to be cast in.
Comfort
through December 19
St. Louis Actors’ Studio
Gaslight Theatre
358 N. Boyle Ave.
314-458-2978
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thank you for your thoughtful review of COMFORT at st. louis actors’ studio–it’s always a challenge to get people out to attend the theater but post-covid it’s even worse so we appreciate all the help we can get. glad you enjoyed the new play; hope you continue to watch and review good things. take care and happy holidays!