Atlantic Theater Buzzes with a Subtle, Strong, and Surreal “Grief Camp” – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: ATC’s Grief Camp

By Ross

She enters and sits, staring into the wooden camp cabin space with a blankness that registers. She curls herself up into a pajama ball, leaning on one of the four occupied bunk beds that suggest so much, right before they all file in and crawl into their assigned beds, trying to get some sleep on a cool summer’s night in the woods. Atlantic Theater Company‘s Grief Camp, written with thoughtful, intuitive composure by Eliya Smith, looks exactly as you would imagine summer camp to be, if you had ever gone, but this is not like most. Directed with a gentle hand by Les Waters (Broadway’s Dana H.), these teenagers, dutifully embodied by a cast of engaging young actors, are all processing and dealing with death and bereavement, in their own particular manner. It’s vague, a bit surreal, oddly banal, and fascinatingly connecting, as it snaps us awake from stress dreams with the need to pee or with a bugle trumpeting that breakfast is being served “now!”.

“Welcome to another perfect day“, the wake-up call announces, as the crew of kids ramble and run their way out of the room for another full day of chores and activities, jumping into side trips to the lake and supervised counseling sessions with young adults who had to deal with the same aspects of grieving as these kids. One such person, Cade, played impressively by Jack DiFalco (Broadway’s Torch Song), does his best, trying to work on emotionally engaging grief workbooks with the resistant Olivia, played captivatingly by Renee-Nicole Powell (SAC’s Measure for Measure), but with few obvious results. The feisty and provocative Olivia is in a different parallel space, defending against such things but saying sexually provocative proclamations to shock and distract from the obvious pain she is holding in, and letting out into the spliced echoes of the floor fan’s blades.

Beyond those two, whose energy is quietly filled with rage and sadness, desire and distrust, the others carry the same soiled baggage like keepsacks from home, tacked to the walls of the cabin by their bed so on those sleepless nights when hormones and jittery sad thoughts of car accidents and drownings keep them awake, they can curl themselves up into the comforting fetal position or speak honest truths to each other in the safety of the darkness, masked by all those sounds that hang in the humid air around a cabin in the woods. Yet the characters don’t hang heavy in that traditional theatrical approach to grief as one might expect. They rally around irrelevant engagements with a sluggishness that is part of those lovely young bones, engaging in teenage distractions that are stitched with their bereavement, but not overwhelmed by it, thanks to Smith’s steadfast determination to write most carefully and honestly about the process through a teenager’s synapses.

The long-tressed Blue, played hypnotically by Maaike Laanstra-Corn (Ars Nova’s Homofermenters), finds her way through by writing and dreaming about a one-person musical about a woman on an island alone, talking to the ocean and remembering what her therapist told her. The young pulled-in Gideon, played purposefully by Dominic Gross (Illinois Shakespeare Fest’s Macbeth), pays low-eyed attention to the metaphoric screen door and the secrets told at night, as he disengages himself for his drowning need of a childhood stuffed dinosaur in need of some mending. His bunkmate, Bart, played tenderly by Arjun Athalye (Disney’s “Goosebumps“), tells him he could repair it, but we know he’s really offering something more caring and compassionate than a few reparative stitches.

Luna and Ester, played authentically by Grace Brennan (“Pet Shop Days“) and Lark White (RT’s Covenant), pull themselves in toward one another in friendship but also in need. Still, the beauty of these two, and the play itself, is that it doesn’t stall around the idea of loss or sadness. It lets their grief buzz around them like the flies and mosquitoes we imagine crawling and flying around that cabin space, designed impeccably by Louisa Thompson (Signature’s In the Blood), with matching costumes by Oana Botez (Public’s Good Bones), distinct lighting by Isabella Byrd (Public’s Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.), and exacting sound by Bray Poor (MTC’s Dakar 2000), without drawing blood in obvious ways. It’s almost banal in the way it hangs around, shifting and transforming, mutating itself into the repetition of each day as they hold on to their internal processing while existing in actions like reading, writing, and jokes told in the night.

It’s profound and moving, this examination, echoed in guitar strumming by a quiet adult, portrayed solidly by Alden Harris-McCoy (Dear Evan Hansen), who has little to say while teaching a distracted teen how to fish, or playing on the porch as the rain falls down. The storm drenches these teens, when they let it, trying to wash away the sorrow that lingers like greasy globs of sunblock on a teenager’s skin, infiltrating their system in ways that are subtle, surreal, and stark. There are no big, dramatic moments of clarity that we are used to when we watch a play about grief and the lingering pain of death’s presence. Still, with ATC‘s Grief Camp, we feel the seriousness of its impact and the hunger for destruction, seduction, and sexuality in their infighting and connection, while also being soaked in the unsentimental crushing wash of a summer camp storm. Now go dry yourself off, and get to breakfast before it’s too late. You’ll want to fill yourself up with this deliciously complex meal before it goes away.

ATC‘s Grief Camp resumed its run at the Off-Broadway company on April 5 after a backstage strike postponed the production. The rescheduled run continues through May 11 in the company’s Linda Gross Theater. For more information or tickets, click here.