Is the past ever over? The two estranged half-brothers in Samuel D. Hunter's 'Grangeville' find out

Jerry and Arnold, 2 estranged half-brothers, are forced by circumstances to beryllium backmost successful touch. Their mother, whom Jerry has been looking after, is dying, and determination are aesculapian bills that request to beryllium straightened out.

Arnold, an creator surviving with his hubby successful the Netherlands, doesn’t cognize wherefore Jerry is reaching retired to him. He near Idaho a beingness agone and would alternatively not person thing much to bash with his abusive upbringing successful podunk Grangeville.

Samuel D. Hunter, the bard of Idaho, wherever galore of his plays are set, including “A Bright New Boise,” “The Whale” and “Little Bear Ridge Road,” grapples successful a caller mode with this territory successful “Grangeville,” which is having its West Coast premiere astatine the Ruskin Group Theatre successful a beautifully acted accumulation directed by John Perrin Flynn.

The mounting for this two-hander is much abstract than accustomed for Hunter, who is 1 of the theater’s outstanding American realists. But the geography is much intelligence than carnal successful a enactment that takes spot mostly done telephone and video calls.

Jerry (Jeff LeBeau), the older of the 2 brothers, has a blameworthy conscience. He was a bully to Arnold (Tim Cummings) erstwhile the 2 were increasing up successful a trailer parkland with their mother, who had a knack for choosing atrocious men. Arnold enactment an water betwixt himself and his family, but his alienation from his past has drained each the colour from his life.

His creation has suffered and helium finds himself astatine a originative standstill. The aboriginal pieces that established his estimation were dioramas of section spots astir Grangeville, specified arsenic a tattoo parlor, a pawn amusement and a Dairy Queen. But past helium turned to much abstract painting, and European involvement successful his enactment dropped off. It wasn’t agelong earlier helium mislaid the thread of his inspiration.

Arnold has been having difficulties successful his marriage. Bram, his husband, has a demanding occupation astatine a depository successful Rotterdam and Arnold’s bitterness has grown wearying. Stalled successful himself, Arnold wishes they could determination backmost to Amsterdam, wherever “there’s a consciousness of history” and permission a metropolis “that got leveled successful World War II” and replaced with “shipping containers and Brutalist McDonald’s.”

The irony, of course, is Arnold has done his champion to expunge his ain idiosyncratic history. His bombed-out interior beingness matches his statement of Rotterdam truthful intimately that it can’t assistance but look similar a projection.

Jerry isn’t faring overmuch better. His wife, Stacey, has walked retired connected him, and helium near a termination enactment that his lad found. He claims helium would ne'er person gone done with it, but he’s been seeing a therapist to woody with his intelligence wellness problems.

Getting backmost successful interaction with Arnold is portion of Jerry’s recovery. Their parent made Jerry her wellness proxy and Arnold the executor of her will, forcing successful effect their cooperation. But Jerry wants successful his sputtering mode to marque amends to his member for the cruel things helium did to him erstwhile they were younger. But however bash you span specified troubled waters?

In his abbreviated communicative “Intimacy,” Raymond Carver uses the metaphor of “dead leaves” to picture the unresolved wounds betwixt the narrator and his ex-wife. Upon leaving her house, wherever helium knelt connected the level mutely asking for her forgiveness, helium notices piles of leaves everyplace helium looks. The communicative closes connected this somber note: “Somebody ought to marque an effort here. Somebody ought to get a rake and instrumentality attraction of this.”

Arnold uses antithetic metaphors to picture his feelings astir what lies betwixt him and brother. “It’s similar being stuck successful a maze and nary substance what way you take there’s conscionable achromatic holes everyplace that you support falling into,” helium says earlier launching into a traumatic memory. Jerry has repressed overmuch of his ain convulsive behavior, but helium knows that this belated reckoning tin nary longer beryllium postponed.

I saw “Grangeville” past twelvemonth successful New York and wondered if Hunter had painted himself into a corner, dramaturgically speaking, successful prolifically turning retired plays that tin look similar claustrophobic country studies. Though good acted by Brian J. Smith and Paul Sparks (who was a precocious substitute for Brendan Fraser), the accumulation was alienating successful its overstylized cadences.

Detachment isn’t an contented successful Flynn’s production, which keeps specified a choky absorption connected the actors that the quality play afloat emerges. This tiny piece, performed without intermission, takes connected an awesome magnitude.

The staging could bash without the underscoring that becomes heavy-handed successful the play’s aboriginal stages. And erstwhile the enactment reaches its combustible Sam Shepardesque climax, Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s transformed acceptable leaves small country for the confrontation country that Flynn directs astatine afloat throttle.

The setting, which changes from a blank Brutalism to a trailer-park-home installation suggesting 1 of Arnold’s cold-eyed dioramas, creates its ain theatrical coup. But the bold aesthetic comes astatine the outgo of the actors’ state successful a play that different seems perfectly astatine location astatine Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center’s awesome caller digs adjacent to the company’s aged Santa Monica home.

Minor distractions notwithstanding, this hypnotically absorbing play is acted with tremendous skill. LeBeau ne'er hits a mendacious enactment arsenic Jerry successful a show that has the unsmooth vulnerability of a Shepard maestro people à la “True West” oregon “Curse of the Starving Class.”

Cummings has a wider scope to traverse arsenic Arnold, whose repressed rage yet has to find an outlet. Although the brothers pass from a distance, there’s nary abstraction betwixt the actors. The transportation betwixt them is charged with feelings that germinate and surprise.

In 1 scene, Cummings is called upon to play Stacey and successful different LeBeau is drafted to play Bram. And successful some cases, these secondary characterizations are arsenic insightfully wrought arsenic the actors’ main roles.

Hunter turns his characters wrong retired successful a play that powerfully illuminates a taxable that has seldom been treated onstage with specified unflinching honesty and sensitivity: How does 1 integrate a past that took everything to escape?