TheatreFIRST inaugurates its new home at Mills College with a top-notch staging of Peter Nichols’s still-potent 1967 black comedy, about a young English couple with a severely handicapped, vegetative child.
Sheila and Bri (real-life couple Cynthia Bassham and Simon Vance) like acting out for one another and the audience, which they readily acknowledge, a series of made-up personalities for their daughter, Joe (Miranda Swain), and recounting vaudeville-style the quack diagnoses and feeble remedies proffered by the unpersuasive representatives of Medical Science and Religion. Although undertaken with sardonic glee, it’s clear this private performance no longer affords the release it once did, as the strain of the last 10 years makes itself felt. When another couple (Howard Dillon and Jessica Powell) who "have it all" drop by unexpectedly, along with Bri’s possessive mother (Wanda McCaddon), a terribly funny, but increasingly disturbing meltdown ensues that (in its quieter, sadder moments) registers the profound tensions between the individual and the fabric of familial and social obligations. In a production whose quality easily rivals that of much larger houses, the play’s sly and fiercely unsentimental blend of Music Hall comedy and stark realism gets just the right touch from director Clive Chafer and an outstanding cast. (Avila)
Joe Egg Lisser Hall, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur, Oakland;
(510) 436-5085, www.theatrefirst.com. $18-22. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 17.