Emily Bridges, a construction contractor who at the start of “A Small Fire” banters with her foreman like one of the guys, becomes, a few scenes later, a mother demanding her daughter not treat her like “a sack of potatoes.”
A small fire in the kitchen is the first clue that Emily is changing. She didn’t notice the smoke because, as it turns out, she has suddenly lost her sense of smell. That is only the beginning of her physical deterioration in this, yes, small play by Adam Bock that offers the audience a chance to reflect on loss and its effect on love.
Before her (unspecified) degenerative illness, Emily (Michele Pawk) is no Donna Reed. She has little respect for her husband John (Reed Birney) and outright dislikes the man her daughter Jenny is planning to marry. Jenny (Celia Keenan-Bolger) reciprocates, resenting her mother and even going so far as to urge John to leave Emily. Emily’s strongest relationship seems to be with her foreman Billy (Victor Williams).
In short scenes over some 80 minutes, we see both the loss of her senses one by one, and the transformation of her relationships — the re-assertion of love. This happens at low temperature and with a lack of details, a mostly welcome approach that avoids melodrama. But it may also let down some theatergoers hoping for a fuller drama, especially the lucky ones who have experienced no major losses in their life. The rest of us can fill in the textual gaps with feeling, thanks largely to all four performers — affecting and effective in their matter-of-factness and with their silences — and to Loy Arcenas’s sets, which offer odd and interesting perspective, and David Weiner’s evocative lighting
There are a few tiny surprises in the plot, and a speech that approximates words of wisdom for people suffering from loss:
This can be a disaster or it can be an opportunity. Somehow. You can try to shove everything back to the way it was, to try to approximate it, to almost be how you were before or you can say “Everything’s different and maybe I can be different” because it’s a chance to change stuff and stuff you might not have been able to change before.
“A Small Fire” ends in a climax – literally, and explicitly. But this is a play in which plot revelations and buck-up admonitions and even sex are just some of the many (to quote Stephen Sondheim) little, little little things you do together.
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A Small Fire
Playwrights Horizon 416 West 42nd
Written by Adam Bock
Directed by Trip Cullman
Scenic design by Loy Arcenas, costume design by Illona Somogyi, lighting design by David Weiner, original music and sound design by Robert Kaplowitz
Cast: Michele Pawk, Reed Birney, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Victor Williams
Running time: about 80 minutes with no intermission
Ticket prices: Single tickets, $70. Student rush $15, HOTtix rush (under 30 years old), $20
“A Small Fire” is scheduled to run until January 23.
Jonathan Mandell
Jonathan Mandell, who tweets as New York Theater, is a native New Yorker and third-generation journalist with diverse experience on newspapers, magazines and websites.He has ...
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