FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019 The Boston Globe G3
ByDonAucoin
GLOBE STAFF
WILLIAMSTOWN— Some
of the ideas behind Sharyn
Rothstein’s “Tell Me I’m Not
Crazy’’ are interesting. The exe-
cution is not.
Or at least notoften
enough, despite periodicflash-
es of insight in this play about
a family that starts coming
apart at the seams after the
clan’s patriarch buys a gun and
begins to adopt an unnervingly
Trumpian worldview.
Too often we can sense
Rothstein checking off boxes or
pushing hot buttons in “Tell
Me I’m Not Crazy,’’ shortchang-
ing character development as
the play transitions awkwardly
fromquippy, Neil Simon-ish
comedy at the start to a decid-
edlydarker vein of social-is-
sues-crash-into-the-homefront
domestic drama.Directed by
Moritz von Stuelpnagel, it’s
now receivingits worldpre-
miere at Williamstown Theatre
Festival, starring the wondrous
Jane Kaczmarek along with
Mark Blum, Nicole Villamil,
and Mark Feuerstein.
“Crazy’’ seeks to — and in
fairness sometimes does —
make us feel for the olderand
younger couples at its center as
they struggle to copewith,for
instance,the fear of obsoles-
cencethat can comewithag-
ing, or the Gordian knot of
conflicts between the impera-
tives of career and parenthood.
All four are, to one degree or
another, disconcerted by the
gulf between expectationsand
actuality that is, let’s face it,
boththe bane and the basic
condition of human existence.
But the play’s treatment of
these and other issues tends to-
wardthe facileand clichéd,
builtarounda seriesof high-
volumeshowdownsthat quick-
ly growrepetitive and dimin-
ish the overall impact of the
sharpone-liners or poignant
revelations that do surface in
“Crazy.’’
It is 62-year-oldSol (Blum),
a former HR manager newly
forced into retirementand
alarmedby recent homeinva-
sions in the neighborhood,
whoplunges two households
into crisis when he arms him-
self with a gunand starts
spendingmuchof his timeat a
firing range. Oneof those
households is his own,shared
withwife Diana(Kaczmarek),
a middle-school math teacher
on the cusp of her 60th birth-
day and nurturingdreamsof a
bicycle trip in Italy but aghast
at the change in Sol, who has
begun railing against undocu-
mentedimmigrants.Contend-
ing that their neighborhood
has beenmadeless safeby
“these people coming in illegal-ly, withnothing,’’ Sol declares:
“I’m taking my goddamn
neighborhood back.’’ (His re-
flexive assumptionsaboutthe
identity of the “hooligans’’ who
perpetrated the break-inswill
prove to rest on shaky ground.)
The other householdcon-
vulsed by Sol’s new enthusiasm
for weapons and vigilantism is
that of their son Nate (Feuer-
stein),a stay-at-homedad
whoseattemptsat a photogra-
phy career have stalled, inten-
sifying his resentment toward
his wife, Alisa (Villamil), who
is successfully climbing the
corporate ladder. Her job as an
advertising accountmanager
increasingly keeps Alisaaway
fromhome andtheir two
youngchildren, one of whom
is demonstrating severe behav-
ioral problemsat his pre-
school.Guilt and ambitionvie
within Alisa, along with horror
at her father-in-law’s newly ex-
pressed views of immigrants.
(It is suggested that she is of
Latino descent.)
As this summary perhaps
suggests, “Crazy’’ tries to cover
too muchground,makingthe
play feel both overstuffed andthin. Especially problematic
are the scenes withNate and
Alisa,whichquickly growte-
dious;whileVillamil deftly
communicates Alisa’s ambiva-
lence, there’s a one-note quali-
ty to Nate’s harangues that
even a fine actor like Feuer-
stein cannottranscend.
It is the older couple who
morefrequently rewardour at-
tention.To her credit, play-
wrightRothstein has endowed
Solwithabitmoredimension
than that of a garden-variety
bigot, and Blum mostly re-
frains from caricature, taking
steps to capture Sol’s humani-
ty. Blumconveys the degreeto
whichSol’s reactionary, MA-
GA-style views are an expres-
sion of deeper feelings of help-
lessness, of losing control, after
being pushed out of his job.
And Kaczmarek? This is her
third appearance at the Wil-
liamstownTheatre Festival in
recent years, following hershattering, unforgettable 2016
portrayal of a terminally ill
womanin Tom Holloway’s
“And No More Shall We Part,’’
withAlfred Molina, and her
2017 performance as a swag-
gering, leather-jacketed lesbi-
an slampoet fromthe Bronx
transplanted to Iowa in Jen Sil-
verman’s “The Roommate,’’
with S. Epatha Merkerson.
Diana,in “Crazy,’’ is the
least developed of those three
roles,but it scarcelymatters
withan actressof Kaczmarek’s
virtuosity. She traverses a wide
emotional range, going big one
moment, smallthe next, creat-
ing a portrait of a womanwho
is shaken by the upheaval in
her world but is also thorough-
ly equippedto restore orderto
it. Here’s hoping the festival al-
ready has another part lined
up for Kaczmarek.DonAucoin canbe reached at
[email protected].A family’s center cannot hold in thin ‘Tell Me I’m Not Crazy’
STAGE REVIEWTELLMEI’MNOT CRAZY
Play by SharynRothstein.
Directedby Moritzvon
Stuelpnagel.Presentedby
Williamstown Theatre
Festival. At Nikos Stage,
’62 Centerfor Theatre and
Dance,Williamstown,
throughAug.3. Tickets $60,
413-458-3253,
http://www.wtfestival.orgJEREMYDANIEL
JaneKaczmarek,Mark Feuerstein,andMark Blumin “TellMeI’m Not Crazy.”JULY8- (^11) ONLY!
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