As Becca's husband, Howie, Jim Gallagher does an exemplary job of inhabiting his character. As Gallagher's Howie copes with his loss by watching videotapes of his son Danny, he communicates a father's pain and need to cling to what remains of a life snuffed out by a car accident. Gallagher creates a father who looks for rationality and intellectualizes to fill his life. Gallagher exposes Howie's palpable vulnerability as he tries to console his wife and establish their former intimacy.
Jamie Erin Miller holds her own as free-spirited, irresponsible Izzy, who in the opening scene with sister Becca amusingly describes an altercation with the female roommate of the man who is gradually revealed to be the father of her expected child. A skilled ensemble player, Miller conveys Izzy's need for attention amid her sister's tragedy, sparring with brother-in-law Harry, whom she resents and wants to assign blame. At her birthday party with the family where she longs for attention, Miller's Becca delivers some natural comic lines to her mother, Nat.
Millie Ferrara is convincing as Nat - the mother of Becca and Izzy - as she prattles on, intent on filling moments of dreaded silence with her ramblings on topics such as the curse of the Kennedy family. Compassionately eager to communicate with Becca and shield her from additional grief, Ferrara's Nat describes her regret at turning away from the one friend who tried to console her at the suicide of her adult son, saying that the friend wanted to share her grief, but could not, and wound up sharing only her cinnamon buns.
Jason, the teenage driver of the car and the one responsible for Danny's death and who now seeks the parents' forgiveness, is played by 11th-grader Joshua Greenwald, who expertly conveys Jason's outsider status as he tries somehow to make amends through dedicating a story he has written to Danny. It is from this story of an alternate universe that the play takes its title.
Each cast member flawlessly delivers every word of Lindsay-Abaire's dialogue that captures the essence of each character. There is a lyrical liberation in the lines given to Izzy, a garrulous natural rhythm to Nat's, a hesitant youthful ambivalence to Jason's, a need to make intellectual sense in the lines assigned to Howie and powerful economy of emotion and restraint in Becca's.
This is a play that should be seen by everyone who enjoys discovering a first-rate playwright and appreciates skilled acting.
Performances continue Thursdays through Sunday through Nov. 8.
Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for seniors and students. To reserve, call the box office, 410-268-7373, or go to the Colonial Players Web site, www.cplayers.com.
