[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of the Whitefire Theatre’s RIGHT, written and produced by Darryl Vinyard and directed by Bryan Rasmussen.
The controversy around vaccines has become a ticking time bomb…quite literally. In recent months, more and more cases of diseases once long forgotten, like whooping cough and measles, have once more become a part of our daily discussions. Why? Because of anti-vaxers. People who have fallen down the rabbit hole of chat rooms and belligerent quacks. Choosing to ignore the science and decades of solid, irrefutable proof to flex their ‘freedom’ by putting all of ours in peril.
RIGHT is a play about two brothers, Jake and Carter, whose relationship is blowing up because Jake refuses to vaccinate his five-year-old son. Carter, a teacher, is about to have a baby with his wife Jenna. Jenna and Carter have decided that unless his brother’s five year old is vaccinated, which is unlikely, they will stay away…conceivably for good.
Of course, this is probably about a little more than a vaccine, at least for the two brothers. Carter is an academic, Jake has his own successful construction company. Theirs is a history of competition and resentment. These days, they have so many subjects to vehemently disagree on, as well as the obvious political chasm, that it seems to be difficult to find any common ground. As the play cunningly unfolds, it is clear that for Jake there is a good deal of sanctimony. For Carter, for whom a teacher’s salary is never enough, his heart breaks every time he looks at his big bother and remembers.
That is the story of the men, but it is the women in this poignant and timely play who are really at the heart of it. Aubrey, Jake’s wife and the mother of his son, has an answer to every single reasonable point from Jenna and Carter. She has read everything there is to read and believes in whatever nonsense suits her chosen diatribe. Jenna is on the side of sense, and the fear for her baby is real. They care deeply for each other, that much is clear, but whatever love there was between them is stretched impossibly by an unchangeable truth and a warped reality.
Questions are posed, spite is spat, and lines are well and truly crossed. RIGHT has the feel of a thriller in many ways. The building of tension, the discoveries, the lies, the torment. How can people with supposed intelligence fall for this rot? Were they looking for an ‘out’ all along? A reason to be outcasts and pariahs? I have a friend who went this route during COVID and has not yet surfaced. Her choices have removed her and her child from so much of our daily life. School, most important for her child, so many ways to never fully participate in opportunities. And for what?
This play thoroughly examines everything you have ever heard any ninny say on the subject. But by pitting these disparate people against each other, it takes this family and squeezes sense and love and honesty out of them until they can do no more.
I am certain that there are many families in this country who have been torn apart by a myriad of things the last few years. Politics, COVID and weird algorithms have put us all on notice.
RIGHT is a beautifully written, brilliantly paced piece of theatre. The performances keep us on the edge of our seats. The tension, the seething disappointment, the abject loathing, the judgement, the sadness and the complete and utter compliance by all parties to their own corners is both terrible and wonderful to watch.
There can be no middle ground when sickness and death are concerned. We have all been touched by this. Whether we even know it or not. And it is worth talking about. Worth writing about and well worth watching, this thankfully fantasy family coming apart.
Art is our only true freedom, which seems to become more and more apparent each and every day. RIGHT demands that we choose a side and take a position. Our loved ones can be just as stupid as anyone else’s after all. Just as dangerous and just as complicit. An accounting must be made. Excuses cannot be accepted from anyone anymore, even those we hold close. It’s much easier to cast a stranger out than brother. But it’s our brothers that must feel the results of all this idiocy if we are ever to move forward together.
Sometimes a person can simply be categorically and provably wrong. I think we are way past unproductive arguments. It feels like almost everything is life or death right now…
RIGHT, with its gifted actors and wonderfully heartfelt director, seems primed to push our buttons from the start. Everyone is brilliant in this play. Everyone is nuanced and intense, cerebral and passionate. The result of all this wonderful work is a play that feels personal. Visceral. Uncompromising and utterly real.
Conversations, debates, ultimatums and the preservation of not only our mental health but our actual lives is paramount. RIGHT pulls us into the middle of it. Holding nothing back. Presenting us with impossible ideas and terrible outcomes. It is real life as theatre and theatre as heartbreak.
Bravo for getting us to pay attention and not turn the page as if it were happening to someone else. Anti-vaxing is here, now. Amongst us. And it’s not going away any time soon. We have to deal with it. Those who became ill and those who have died had to. It’s the least we can do not to forget them.
When:
Runs through October 12
The play runs Sunday, September 14 at 7pm, Saturday, September 20 at 8pm, Saturday, September 27 at 8pm; Sunday, October 5 at 7pm, Saturday October 11 at 8pm, Sunday, October 12 at 7pm
Where:
The Whitefire Theatre
13500 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
Tickets:
https://www.whitefiretheatre.com
RIGHT Cast
Jenna – Gloria Ines
Carter – Eric Keitel
Aubrey – Sara Maraffino
Jake – Mitch Rosander
Jenna (alternate) – Cayla Black
****
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