BOTTOM LINE: Effing funny and freakishly relatable (at first, anyway). This play is a prime example that high-quality downtown theatre does still exist.
If one were to see a play called The Bereaved, written by a playwright named Thomas Bradshaw, one might expect a solemn tale; = perhaps a depressing story about death or coping with loss. One could not be more wrong. The Bereaved is indeed a story about death, a broken family, and coping with tragedy. But it’s also hysterically funny in an “I can’t believe that just happened” kind of way. The audience laughs in spite of itself, and very quickly the humor trumps anything intrinsically sad.
The premise is really quite depressing: Carol (McKenna Kerrigan) is a high-powered Manhattan attorney-slash-wife-and-mother. She suffers a heart attack and spends the subsequent weeks in the hospital. During that time, she makes sure to finalize plans for her family so that when she dies (she’s not optimistic about her recovery) her part-time professor husband Michael (Andrew Garman) and 15-year-old son Teddy (Vincent Madero) will be cared for. As Carol anticipates the end, her family and best friend Katy (KK Moggie) try to cope with the situation. And it’s perhaps in those coping mechanisms that they lose sight of any responsible decision.
The Bereaved is an appreciated theatrical mindfuck that holds the audience’s attention; you think you’re seeing one play and it turns out to be another. As the characters disengage from reality, you wonder if they were always batshit extremists or if their situation is a result of their trauma. The tale Bradshaw weaves builds brilliantly: at the beginning the story is relatable, albeit on an extreme level. But as it unfolds, the characters unhinge and their antics, once quirky, exaggerate to the unpredictable. This provides for tremendously fun storytelling as the absurdity escalates and the audience wonders what could possibly happen next.
