David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, Rabbit Hole, (which was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman), is about grief without any of the typical clichés. No one sobs into the clothes of the person who died, no one needs to be held, or has any angry monologue with God. This grief is quiet, fumbling, sometimes even humorous and full of silence.
Becca (Jenni Ryan) is putting away clothes—toddler clothes. She’s taking them from the laundry basket and putting them in a box while her sister Izzy (Lara Buck) talks about being in a bar fight. When Becca complains that Izzy can’t pull herself together, Izzy says it’s been hard with everything that’s happened. “No,” Becca replies. “You don’t get to use him as an excuse.” She indicates the clothes. They belonged to Becca’s four-year-old son, Danny, who was killed eight months ago when he chased their dog, Taz, out into the street in front of a car.
Stay up-to-date with the local arts scene
Subscribe to the weekly St. Louis Arts+Culture newsletter to discover must-attend art exhibits, performances, festivals, and more.
Throughout the play, Becca is always packing Danny up, cleaning up his smudgy fingerprints, taking his art off of the fridge, which sits naked center stage. She takes down his photos and gives his clothes away. Her husband, Howie (Christopher Hickey), accuses her of “erasing him,” but Becca doesn’t want any reminders. Howie wants to hold on to Danny through all of his things—he seeks solace in home videos and group therapy—while Becca rejects any of the usual balms. She doesn’t go to groups, or see a shrink. She calls God a “sadistic prick.”
The audience realizes that if there are five stages of grief, this is what the fifth one—acceptance—looks like. Howie and Becca keep repeating that what happened was no one’s fault, as if they have to keep saying it till they believe it. They don’t blame Jason, the 17-year-old who was driving the car that killed their son. They’re clearly trying to move forward, but how? Danny’s room above the kitchen sits above them, haunting every conversation, every action. Even when Becca’s mom Nat (Donna Weinsting), tries to talk about the Kennedys, it leads back to talk about grief.
Lindsay-Abaire’s play is solid stage fare and this production, by and large, lives up to its material. Jenni Ryan does a good job as Becca, a role that Cynthia Nixon (Miranda in Sex and the City) played with aplomb on Broadway. The key is not to overdo it, which is tempting in a role where you’re supposed to express so much loss, but Ryan hits the right stride, looking drawn and grim and worried that this will never get easier. The other actors are also strong, but occasionally become overanimated. Some of the stiffness disappeared after the first few minutes, but some of it could have been due to the fact the actors didn’t have mics and had to speak loudly to keep their voices from sounding hollow in the large theater. There was also a problem with the sound system: a strange noise came over the speakers, and interrupted the play twice. Hopefully, Insight figured out what went wrong and fixed it.
Ultimately, the play is a wonderful portrait of loss—and it ends with a resonating, suffocating silence that highlights all too well what’s missing.
