Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Nathan Alan Davis’s THE REFUGE PLAYS: A turbulent family saga kept afloat by love and ghosts

• By drediman
• November 2, 2023
• No Comments

Last night at the Laura Pels Theatre, I attended Roundabout Theatre Company’s Off-Broadway production of The Refuge Plays by Nathan Alan Davis. Set in the backwaters of Southern Illinois, the sprawling work — which is being co-presented by New York Theatre Workshop — is essentially comprised of three discrete one act plays collectively chronicling one family’s turbulent inter-generational saga from the 1950s to the present.

In addition to its luxuriously paced three and a half hour running time — including two intermissions — the work is also notable for being presented in reverse chronological order. As with the similarly-structured Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along (which is currently enjoying a starry revival on Broadway), The Refuge Plays endeavors to unpack years of knotted histories and relationships to get to the root of the family’s bruised experiences. As we travel back in time, the plays are increasingly pared down in terms of stylistic trappings and narrative happenings, as if distilling for the audience the family’s essential qualities (the last play is an elegantly wrought two-hander). Indeed, what’s consistent among the three segments is the playwright’s at times heavy-handed certainty of two lifesavers that have kept the family afloat — love and the (literal) ghosts of the family’s forebears. Also, it’s to Davis’s credit that the lengthy piece passes by as quickly as it does, all the while maintaining its appealingly casual intimacy.

The Refuge Plays has been directed by Patricia McGregor, whose staging simmers along, taking its time to bask in both mundane and the momentous occurrences. The depictions of the work’s numerous spectral encounters take on a matter-of-factness that’s strangely beguiling. Following suite is the intensely naturalistic quality of the acting, which lends a distinctive dramatic cadence that wouldn’t be amiss in a Lanford Wilson play (e.g., the budding romances in each of the three plays call to mind Talley’s Folly). In the central role of Early — the only character to play a central part in all three plays — Nicole Ari Parker gives a disarming performance that encapsulates the family’s heart, humor, and resiliency.

RECOMMENDED

THE REFUGE PLAYS
Off-Broadway, Plays
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre
3 hours, 30 minutes (with two intermissions)
Through November 12