[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Beverly Hills Playhouse’s MY DAD’S KID by playwright Eric Toms, directed by Allen Barton and running through October 5.
The Beverly Hills Playhouse has a well-earned reputation for producing fine original work, supporting new playwrights and exploring every facet of the human condition in all its gore and glory.
MY DAD’S KID continues that journey and with a cheeky twist it gives the writer, Eric Toms, the double honor of giving shelter to his first play and also starring in his own work. This could well be considered a bit of a risk. However, fortunately for Mr Toms, the gods of drama seem to have been smiling and he is equally gifted at both.
The result of all this alchemy is a very funny play about a blocked writer and his half sister who he barely sees. They spend a few days over Christmas torturing each other while she is in town for a job interview that implodes rather splendidly. The plot is perfection.
Siblings. Need I say more? Even ones that are decades apart and barely know each other can twist the knife expertly by raising an eyebrow. Am I right?
The setting for this story is Greg’s apartment in Los Angeles. Recently divorced, he is living frugally, with a sidewalk couch and a necessary Uber driving habit. He helps his landlady with menial tasks, not for money it seems, but for some kind of human connection that doesn’t involve it. Meanwhile, his first highly successful novel has been propping him up for far too long, and his second novel is nowhere to be seen. Or imagined. Or even dreamt of. He is lost and miserable. And then his kid sister shows up -all successful New York lawyer with no filter. And, as it turns out, no career thanks to a badly chosen workplace affair with the husband of a billionaire who’s feeling vengeful.
To Greg, he is the villain, the abandoner, the liar and petty thief. Yet, to Pamela, a god. I get that. A man can be more than one thing, especially with a different name, state and personality. The dichotomy of all this seems utterly real to me. But how these two unravel together is really the centre of the play.
Two characters with nothing in common trying to survive each other. What a perfect setup. These characters are big, unnerving and so desperately full of self loathing that it seems to be the most obvious thing they have in common. It unites them, it comforts them and in the end, oddly, it saves them.
The writing is clever, funny and very engaging. It connects us to these two people immediately they appear. We know them, intimately. And by the end of the play, they feel able to be themselves.
The humour is fast and slow, smooth and bitchy, physical and cerebral. It feels like a family reunion at a funeral home. With no snacks and very cheap whisky. Except the father is still alive and well and living in suburbia somewhere and his two offspring are barely hanging on.
Nancy Kelham as Pam is incandescent. She oozes Pam from every pore and her fearless approach to her character is brazen and tender and heart breaking.
Eric Toms plays Greg as you might imagine a playwright might play his own creation. Nuanced, understanding, experienced. But he is so incredibly good in this play that you completely forget that he wrote it. He is Greg. Sad, lonely, lost and stuck. Pam, in all her wretched glory, unsticks him. And it is magical!
I highly recommend MY DAD’S KID at The Beverly Hills Playhouse. What a wonderful, thoughtful and hilarious play with two brilliant actors playing off each other with such tremendous skill and revelling in every second of it! I absolutely loved it!!!
Tickets:
Where:
The Beverly Hills Playhouse
254 South Robertson Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
When:
September 12 – October 5
Friday and Saturday 8pm and Sunday 7pm
MY DAD’S KID Cast
Nanci Kelham – Pamela
Eric Toms – Greg
The Team
Director – Allen Barton
Producer – Mia Christou
Lighting Design – Derrick McDaniel
Set Design – Mia Christou & Collin Bernsen
Stage Manager – David Bello
Publicity – SANDRA KUKER PR (Sandra Kuker-Franco)
Special Thanks to Bailey Williams, Esther Treadway and Shane Munson.
****
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