'Our Practical Heaven' review: Family tensions
The principal problem for the Aurora Theatre world premiere that opened Thursday, though, lies in making us feel connected with this extended family. The seasoned, proficient Joy Carlin, Julia Brothers and Anne Darragh lead a six-person ensemble coping with everything from family tensions to climate change, including mother-daughter battles, cancer, cutthroat capitalism, rising sea levels, autoimmune diseases and aging parents. In other words, it's life in the 21st century - albeit at a secluded coastal home located between a pond and the ocean - which is no accident. "Heaven" is the anchor production in the Aurora's eighth annual Global Age Project, dedicated to plays that explore life in the new millennium, and was one of its winning scripts two years ago (this year's winners will receive staged readings each Monday in February). A congenitally unhappy woman, she's forever fretting over potential problems and snapping orders at her grown children - Suze (Blythe Foster), a social activist working in Appalachia, who fiercely dislikes her mother; and the younger Leez (Adrienne Walters), who blends daughterly resentment with poetic-mystic yearnings and worries about being able to afford college. The characters bicker and console, muse, face up to disease and death and clash over aspects of the fate of the Earth. Reported by SFGate 2 days ago.
The principal problem for the Aurora Theatre world premiere that opened Thursday, though, lies in making us feel connected with this extended family. The seasoned, proficient Joy Carlin, Julia Brothers and Anne Darragh lead a six-person ensemble coping with everything from family tensions to climate change, including mother-daughter battles, cancer, cutthroat capitalism, rising sea levels, autoimmune diseases and aging parents. In other words, it's life in the 21st century - albeit at a secluded coastal home located between a pond and the ocean - which is no accident. "Heaven" is the anchor production in the Aurora's eighth annual Global Age Project, dedicated to plays that explore life in the new millennium, and was one of its winning scripts two years ago (this year's winners will receive staged readings each Monday in February). A congenitally unhappy woman, she's forever fretting over potential problems and snapping orders at her grown children - Suze (Blythe Foster), a social activist working in Appalachia, who fiercely dislikes her mother; and the younger Leez (Adrienne Walters), who blends daughterly resentment with poetic-mystic yearnings and worries about being able to afford college. The characters bicker and console, muse, face up to disease and death and clash over aspects of the fate of the Earth. Reported by SFGate 2 days ago.