Once in a while, a play — usually grappling with a serious subject — comes along that you pull for, that you hope will satisfactorily solve all dramatic requirements. Grant MacDermott’s Jasper doesn’t quite succeed but still has extremely moving sequences that favorably weight the balance.
Drew (Dominic Fumusa) and Andrea (Jessica Pimentel) have spent more than seven years hoping their (never seen) son Jasper will be cured of the medical problems at birth that have kept him from anything resembling a normal childhood.
The prognosis isn’t promising. Jasper is maintained by so many tubes and other paraphernalia that Drew and Andrea have never even held him. The result is so severe that they have been reduced to a state of grief not from death but from longing for death not to occur any time soon.
Since grief is experienced differently from individual to individual, the grief Drew and Andrea runs to extended bickering, this despite frequently recognizing their enduring love for each other. Andrea is single-mindedly devoted to Jasper. She refuses to hear anything that contradicts her belief that he cannot be cured.
She’s such a determined fighter that she sees to Jasper’s being accepted into a special study for children like him. Drew is more realistic about Jasper’s prospects. More than that, he misses his opportunity to be dad to a boy with whom, among other dad-son things, he can toss around a baseball.
Drew gets the baseball-mitt chance on a lucky subway meeting—Jasper takes place in New York City—with divorced Shayla (Abigail Hawk), mother to four-year-old Tyler (also never seen). Taking advantage of the introduction and saying he’s married but has no children, Drew becomes attached to Tyler, even taking time off from his construction job to spend time with the active boy.
This also means spending time with Shayla, the quick outcome of which is that Tyler and Shayla both fall for the affable Drew. Shayla goes as far as laundering clothes Drew soils when catering to Tyler. He does that during hours he isn’t spending with Jasper, who, doctors advise, is not improving.
That’s the set-up, and that’s where playwright MacDermott gets much right and some wrong—and may have observers wondering if his dedication to the sorrowful dilemma isn’t due to a keen personal knowledge of the woeful situation.
He initially tests an audience’s response with the opening scenes during which Drew and Andrea consistently attack each other. MacDermott likely has it right that the bickering – the alternately channeled grief – is true of such afflicted parents. Nevertheless, he makes the point too often. Anyone watching their plight sympathizes, but after a time, sympathy shifts to impatience.
MacDermott also lapses into a predictable plot development or two. Shayla’s laundering is one. There’s some talk of how Tide (nice product placement here) does the cleansing trick. When Drew brings home the results of Shayla’s handy washer-dryer, it’s almost as if audience members can be heard yelling for Andrea to do some sniffing.
Additionally, because Drew and Andrea do love each other at the deepest level and because they’ve been handed such a raw, heart-tugging deal, MacDermott wants to give them a happy ending. Anyone observing their seemingly unending crisis wants the same.
Nevertheless, MacDermott doesn’t quite find the right path to reach the goal, if he reaches the goal. Indeed, there is a moment – not to be revealed here – when Jasper appears to conclude properly, as further indicated by Robin A. Paterson’s lighting and John Gromada’s sound.
MacDermott doesn’t honor that moment. Instead, his loyalty to Drew urges him on. So much so that a woman behind me asked aloud, “Is this necessary?” She was right to ask. Here again, MacDermott had planted an earlier solution to do with Andrea’s never wanting another child, fearing that whatever had caused Jasper’s condition might repeat. Drew is convinced that a repeat is unlikely.
All the same, whereas MacDermott commits playwrighting missteps, director Katie McHugh and cast go country miles compensating for him. McHugh does everything exactly right as Andrea and Drew repel and attract each other.
McHugh’s actors, filling Michael Gianfrancesco’s accommodating set, are superb. Fumusa, easily athletic, is convincing as a man torn by unfair circumstances, a man ready to introduce a son to sports all the while crushed by its not occurring. There’s a later scene where he finally opens up about his restraints. Fumusa plays it beautifully and might have played it more beautifully if he gave himself over to a fully emotional breakdown. Perhaps McHugh and he considers that but choose to keep it as is.
Pimentel’s Andrea is deeply attached to her son, deeply committed to battle relentlessly for his future. Her adamant take is practically monumental, and the moments she allows her suppressed uncertainties to break through are equally effective. Hawk’s is flawless as a working woman committed to raising a son by herself but who senses he needs a father figure. She evinces honest disappointment at falling for a man she knows doesn’t reciprocate her desire.
The Jasper verdict? Anyone with a heart will plug for it, him, and them.
Jasper opened September 14, 2022, at Signature Center and runs through October 6. Tickets and information: signaturetheatre.org
