How well do you get along with your siblings, and why? Grangeville, Samuel D. Hunter’s haunting new play, which opened on Monday at the Pershing Square Signature Center, makes me reflect upon my relationships with mine. Hunter’s drama might compel you to consider your family bonds, too. Or perhaps you will appreciate Grangeville merely because it is a thoughtfully composed drama that involves adult themes such as forgiveness, reconciliation, the evasive or faulty nature of memories, and the lies we tell to others and to ourselves. What’s more, the play’s characters and emotions are sensitively interpreted by two fine actors in this world premiere production commissioned and expertly staged by Signature Theatre.
Hunter’s contemporary story regards middle-aged brothers – technically half-brothers sharing the same mom – who have been out of touch for many years, if not entirely estranged. Grangeville begins in the dark with an awkward phone call between Jerry (Paul Sparks) and Arnold (Brian J. Smith). As the lighting brightens, halting exchanges over their dying mother’s medical bills are followed by uneasy video chats. Arnold is dismayed to discover their stroked-out mother has named him executor of her messy, bankrupt estate and now has to deal with a brother he does not like.
Over 90 minutes and half a dozen scenes, the audience learns much about these contrasting siblings and their lives, past and present. The elder brother by a decade, Jerry is a good old boy-type salesman unhappily separated from his wife Stacey. In his midlife quandary, Jerry is holed up in the shabby trailer where the brothers once endured a wretched upbringing in their Grangeville hometown. A miserably gay youth stuck in the Idaho sticks, where Jerry often beat him – “I was trying to toughen him up,” claims Jerry – Arnold escaped to Europe as soon as he could and became a notable sculptor and painter who resides in the Netherlands with Bram, his longtime husband.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★★ review here.]
After one frustrating video call abruptly ends in anger, the lighting shifts. Now, instead of being on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Jerry and Arnold appear to be talking in the same location. After a few moments of conversation, it becomes clear that while Jerry remains Jerry, the person he now speaks with is Stacey, his soon to be ex-wife, portrayed by Smith in a subtle change of manner and tone, though not his clothes. (The image accompanying this review presents the scene.) Subsequently in a Rotterdam sequence, Bram is quietly depicted by Sparks with a Dutch accent and a cultivated demeanor. Their hushed exchange unexpectedly discloses that Arnold lately hasn’t been productive or successfully creative – unlike his acclaimed early works, which were miniature dioramas replicating Grangeville places like the Dairy Queen and tattoo parlor – and how he is now drowning in self-pity. In contrast, it’s revealed how Jerry is mending himself with a therapist and hopes to make peace with his wounded brother, venturing, “I’m not saying I’m a different person, but maybe I’m – not the same person?” Arnold, however, does not wish to revisit their past, let alone forgive.
Packing a nice surprise towards its conclusion, the play is crisply staged by Jack Serio, the director, within purposefully stark environs designed by the dots team that enable Stacey Derosier’s lovely lighting design to bridge continents and to overwhelm individuals in emotional shadows. Background sounds designed by Christopher Darbassie contribute to the production’s easy naturalness. Hunter’s conversational dialogue and Serio’s staging both invest Grangeville with a sense of forward movement even as much of its story recounts the characters’ past. Of course, the proficient artistry that Sparks and Smith show in their respective transitions into Bram and Stacey is remarkable, while the dissimilar brothers they portray so genuinely as Jerry and Arnold appear vital in their own separate ways.
Grangeville opened February 24, 2025, at Signature Center and runs through March 23. Tickets and information: signaturetheatre.org
