The world presented within Zayd Dohrn’s Sick is just a few notes removed from our own, where germophobes lock themselves up in seas of white plastic in fear of dying from some strange microbe or allergen. Sick is an exploration on life in today’s society through one of the most extreme spyglasses imaginable, showing us the world as a dirty, deadly place where death is waiting in the wings, ready to pounce at the slightest hint of weakness. This dark message, of course, makes for great comedy, as our young protagonist is thrown to the wolves and enters this strange world, experiencing for himself what it truly means to be sick.
The family in Dohrn’s piece lives a life in a bubble, scared to death of the outside world, never straying past their front door in fear of what lurking death lies beyond it. The only one free to the roam the outside world is the patriarch Syndey, who upends the whole apple cart when he invites his student, Jim, to dinner, who inadvertently changes the lives of the family, especially that of the youngest daughter, Sarah, a young girl whose fear of sickness has led to a closeted life away from the outside world, never allowing her to truly experience the the world around her, and get in touch with her awesome writing talent.
Hamilton Township’s Joey LePage plays the college student thrown into the thick of the wild world of this strange family, and he plays off the confused and awkward, but ever polite co-ed with great polish, a bumbling everyman in a world made up of truly unique individuals. Tayler Gill of the Bird and the Bee plays the youngest daughter, Sarah, and once again proves she can play the modern teen better than just about anyone in town, but there remained something slightly off about the performance, as if she was so good at playing a realistic teenager, that her character lost its stranger qualities. Joe Reynolds, of Killer Joe fame, plays Sydney, the bread-winner and head of the family, a well-spoken bastion of masculinity, the one voice of sanity in a world filled with chaos, a regular joe trying to make a home for his family of oddballs, though
even he falls into the trap of gleaming white cleanliness by play’s end. Stealing the show, however, are Rebecca Robinson, who won best actress for her role in Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, as the mother, Maxine, and relative newcomer Stephen Mercantel, who plays the sickly brother Davey. Robinson plays Maxine with a sense of motherly honestey, so that even while she rings off wild conspiracy theories, we can still believe that she only has the best intentions at heart. She is a woman concerned about the sake of her family, who she knows would fall apart in the outside world without her. Mercantel’s Davey brought out perhaps the most laughs of the piece, as the sickly, and perverted son, whose feminine squeak alone is enough to garner plenty of giggles, but when he starts talking about his pornography and women, it’s hard not to find yourself guffawing. There are two sides to the Davey coin, however, because he also plays a very sick boy, and Mercantile is able to play up these painful moments with great skill.
The play is crass, crude, and full of references to sex, so anyone thinking of taking a child under 15 to see it should probably think again. Zayd Dohrn’s new play, with the skilled direction of Capital T Theater artistic director Mark Pickell, presents a unique and involving world, with characters that grab on to you the moment they hit the stage, characters you may not ever want to meet, but that you won’t soon want to forget. Everything comes together well to make this somewhat hard to believe situation seem completely plausible, which is really a testament to what a talented group of performers are involved.
Sick is running through December 5 at Hyde Park Theater. To purchase tickets and find out more information about Capital T Theatre’s upcoming season, including info on their upcoming production of Tracey Letts’ Bug, visit their website at capitalt.org.
To see my reviews of previous Capital T shows, visit one of the links below:
I Heart Walmart
Killer Joe
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