Grangeville
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Cititour.com Review
In Don Henley’s classic ballad “The Heart of the Matter,” the heartbroken narrator concludes that he thinks everything is about forgiveness. Decades later, the same message ultimately emerges in Samuel D. Hunter’s extraordinary new play “Grangeville,” now at the Signature Theatre.
Like many of Hunter’s previous outings (“The Whale,” “A Case for the Existence of God”), the play is about men struggling how to live, or even whether to live. Yet, as great as those plays are, “Grangeville,” exquisitely acted by Paul Sparks and Brian J. Smith and sensitively directed by Jack Serio, not only rises to the top of Hunter’s already spectacular catalogue but also emerges as the finest dramatic play of this season -- one filled with pain, empathy, clear-headedness, and ultimately hope.
Staged primarily as a series of phone and video conversations on an ultra-spare set by the collective dots (whose work, unsurprisingly, will unfold to reveal a hidden treasure or two), “Grangeville” explores the complex relationship between long-estranged half-brothers Jerry (Sparks in a breathtakingly realistic turn), eking out a living as an RV salesman in the pair’s hometown of Grangeville, Idaho, and Arnold (a volatile yet heartbreaking Smith), who long ago fled to Holland, where his once-promising career as an artist is now floundering.
Ten years apart and born to different, equally abusive fathers (but ultimately raised by both), the pair have just reconnected after many years as Jerry seeks helps dealing with the care of their dying mother, a once-neglectful, alcoholic woman whom Arnold has tried to put in the proverbial rear-view mirror. It seems clear from the get-go that these men have little in common other than heredity and some shared childhood experience, but Hunter slowly yet subtly reveals both their larger differences, including Jerry’s almost shockingly cruel treatment of Arnold as child, to their shared past trauma and present-day troubles.
Moreover, while Jerry is struggling to forgive himself for the mistakes of his younger self (with some help from therapy) Arnold seems disinclined to forgive anyone -- especially Jerry for the pain he inflicted long ago -- although one senses the urge is there. In a way, we realize Arnold is also trying to forgive Grangeville itself, a town that didn’t accept him as a young gay man, but which nonetheless became the subject matter of Arnold’s early, only successful artwork.
Further, in a clever parallel, both men are dealing with frayed or fraying marriages, and (true spoiler alert), Hunter has crafted two moving and revealing scenes, one in which Arnold transforms (with slight physical shifts) into Jerry’s estranged wife, Stacey, and Jerry similarly becomes Arnold’s frustrated husband, Bram, a museum employee. These scenes emphasize how much both men’s spouses want to move forward but feel frustrated being tied to men who cannot or will not escape their past.
As Arnold succinctly puts it to Jerry: “It’s like no matter what memory it is, no matter how seemingly innocuous it is, it always leads straight to shit. It’s like being stuck in a maze and no matter what path you choose there’s just black holes everywhere that you keep falling into.”
Indeed, it’s pungent dialogue such as this that puts Hunter into a class of his own, along with his deep sense of understanding of the human condition, especially our need for real human connection. In the end, “Grangeville” is not just about forgiveness, but also compassion, two qualities we need more than ever in our daily lives.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://signaturetheatre.org
Open/Close Dates
Opening 2/24/2025
Closing 3/23/2025
Theatre Info
Signature Theatre
480 W 42nd St
New York, NY 10036
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