From the archives: October, 2009: Next Theatre wins with End Days

Photo courtesy of Next Theatre. From left, William Dick, Laura T. Fisher, Joseph Wycoff and  Adam Shalzi.

As it is, Next’s production is compelling even in its most outlandish moments. And what with Stephen Hawking and Jesus Christ constantly coming and going, there are plenty of outlandish moments. Upping the oddness factor: The teenage Elvis impersonator next door, a high-strung adolescent whose nervous chatter loops and buzzes like a swarm of drunken bees.

Within this trippy atmosphere populated by misfits, director Shade Murray finds the story’s deeply relatable human core, and makes it shine. Even in the most absurd scenes (Sylvia demanding the Rapture’s precise timeline from a reluctant Jesus, Stephen Hawking helping Sylvia’s daughter Rachel to remember her locker combination), things feels honest and true.

End Days delves the profound disconnect among members of the Stein family in the wake of 9-11. Sylvia, her husband Arthur (William Dick) and daughter Rachel (Carolyn Faye Kramer) are as estranged from each other as they are from the world at large.  While Sylvia has turned to Jesus, Arthur - who survived the World Trade Center attacks while all of his co-workers perished - has tumbled into a near catatonic-depression. Rachel expresses her broken-hearted rage by stomping about in Doc Martins and painting her face ghost-goth white. In their own distinctive way, each of the Steins has given up on life on earth – which makes the sudden arrival of Nelson (Adam Shalzi) all the more jarring. Despite having survived tragedy on a par with the Steins, Nelson is as optimistic and life-affirming as his neighbors are life-denying. His only apparent damage is the Elvis jumpsuit he uses as a security blanket and a loquacious lack of social graces.

Within the small, ordinary parameters of the Stein’s world – a living room, a kitchen, and a high school hallway – Laufer’s injects ideas as big as the universe with dialogue probing matters Biblical, astro-physical, religious and scientific. While Sylvia is fervently preparing for the Apocalypse and chatting up Jesus, Rachel is also pondering the mysteries of the space/time continuum with Hawking. Nelson and Arthur become similarly engrossed in matters far larger than the earth’s boundaries, bonding over the beauty and mystery of Nelson’s Bar Mitzvah preparations.

Early in the second act, Sylvia gets a monologue that pierces straight to the heart while explaining her abrupt conversion from agnostic Jew to Born Again Christian. It’s a passage that absolutely nails the unbearable fear of being separated from loved ones, be it during a terrorist attack or during the end of the world. Sylvia’s utter anguish at the thought of being Raptured up to Jesus while her family is left behind is intensely believable. Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or atheist - Anyone who has ever feared the loss of a loved one will recognize themselves in Sylvia. 

The rest of the cast is solid. Dick absolutely captures the shrugging despair (and the black humor) of major depression. Shalzi is convincingly guileless as a gawky boy who speaks unvarnished truth simply because he doesn’t know how to filter his conversation to meet societal norms. Wycoff is appropriately beatific as Jesus and wryly brainy as Hawking. 

A final key performer here: Nick Keenan’s sound design, which merges Latin and Hebrew religious chants with Johnny Cash songs.