At the Beach House
L.A. City Beat's "Stage Critic's Choice"
It's a small and seemingly rarefied world for the protagonists of At the Beach House, author Aram Saroyan's first play. Yet the more we see it, the more it feels familiar. On a gorgeous day at the Malibu second home of movie star Clyde Harrow (Orson Bean) and wife Wanda (Nancy Jeris) their blended family swirls uneasily around sardonic, drug-addicted daughter Angela (Lisa Glass), until a more immediate incident demands their attention. Saroyan--son of writer William Saroyan and stepson of Walter Matthau--knows about growing up with fame, and he distills his understanding into observations alternately hilarious and poignant. Angela's ex-boyfriend and brothers have their say about her condition, and Bean's second-act speech on What Matters in Life provides a moment of reflective calm. But the funniest and most powerful interactions belong to the women: Angela, Wanda, and Angela's grandma (Dena Dietrich), who bicker and banter but come to a (perhaps fleeting) solidarity. Saroyan digs past the trappings of cynical celebrity to get at the heart of family bonds, which--as we all know--can provide a surprisingly resilient safety net in which to fall.
Natalie Nichols
