Liz Larsen (left) portrays Mindy, sister-in-law to Leo (Allen McCullough, center) and wife to David (Dan Sharkey, right), in Our Brother’s Son.
Despite family secrets being revealed, two brushes with death, a constantly rotating set and repeated storming out of the house, not all that much happens in Our Brother’s Son, a passable but toothless drama by career gastroenterologist turned first-time playwright Charles Gluck.
Dr. Gluck’s play revolves, as one might expect, around a medical issue: Leo, the oldest and heretofore luckiest of three middle-aged siblings, is diagnosed with kidney failure and needs a transplant to survive. This leads to a lot of (contentious) talk about which family members would be willing to donate a kidney but none about the potential risks or other considerations related to organ donation.
Bradley (Harrison Chad, right) helps his aunt Gail (Leeanne Hutchison) with a computer program. Photographs by Russ Rowland.
Not that you’d want the script to turn into a medical treatise, but it seems people would have more to say or ask in this situation. They don’t express feelings about the prospect of losing their brother, either. The dialogue of Our Brother’s Son in general is kind of artificial: Characters are too quippy, and their reactions and comments often sound like they were written to tip off the audience to emotions and backstories. Gluck also should have found less hackneyed fodder for jokes than veganism and older people not understanding technology.
As for the big secret that gets spilled, it too has appeared in stage works before. Another shocking incident later in the play is plotted very clunkily and just adds melodrama.
Produced in Florida in 2016 under the title Unlikely Heroes, Our Brother’s Son lands in New York with a cast of Broadway veterans, including Tony nominee Liz Larsen and Harrison Chad (who starred as the child in the original Caroline, or Change 18 years ago), under the direction of David Alpert. The production must be well-funded, judging from its multistory digital-screen billboard in Times Square and Adam Koch’s amply decorated set.
Most scenes take place in either Leo’s or his brother David’s home. Stage right depicts the front door, kitchen and hallway of David’s house; the other side of the stage has the front door and a room of Leo’s house. A turntable keeps bringing the living-room furniture of each home into position—a turntable that’s frequently in motion (the 90-minute play contains more than 20 scenes) but not even necessary. The living rooms could have been stationary, and the only other set on the turntable, the basement bedroom of David’s son Bradley, accommodated elsewhere.
Another overused aspect of the set are the doors, since Gluck relies too much on walking-out-in-a-huff as a way to end a scene (or a disagreement). As if that weren’t stagy enough, the people walking out of the house keep doing so holding, not wearing, their coats, when it’s wintertime in the northeastern U.S.
If the turntable set were accompanied by the frenetic activity of a farce—as it is in Broadway’s POTUS, another new play with a spinning set—it wouldn’t seem as gratuitous as it does amid the relatively quiet action of Our Brother’s Son.
Midori Nakamura and Allen McCullough are a couple facing a medical crisis in Our Brother’s Son.
What enlivens the play is the wholehearted performance of Larsen as David’s outspoken wife, Mindy. Best known for musicals, Larsen proves herself a skilled purveyor of that beloved comedy archetype, the meddling Jewish mother. Her punchlines always land—they don’t necessarily for others—and her concern for or displeasure with her husband and son comes across as genuine.
While Larsen’s costars don’t match her authenticity and gusto, they’re mostly well-cast: Allen McCullough as Leo; Dan Sharkey as David, who has always struggled financially and mentally more than his “golden boy” brother; Chad as Bradley, living on videogames and potato chips since graduating from college 18 months ago; and Leeanne Hutchison as Gail, David and Leo’s professionally successful but terminally single sister. (Her elegant outfits are a highlight of Lindsay McWilliams’ costume design.)
Gluck has made a peculiar decision to begin and conclude the play with scenes centered on the character least integral to the family dynamics: Leo’s wife, Susan. Midori Nakamura, who blandly portrays her and lacks chemistry with McCullough; also, her meek demeanor doesn’t jibe with Susan’s pushiness regarding the kidney donation. There’s no point to Susan’s opening monologue—her remarks at a book club meeting—other than ultra-obvious foreshadowing: “Without any sense of family . . . she never learned that she’s an important part of something much bigger than herself, and that everyone in a family has a responsibility to care for each other.” It’s also perplexing that Susan would be such a champion of familial obligation when she hasn’t spoken to her own sister in 10 years, just as it’s perplexing why this detail—mentioned only once, offhandedly—is even included.
Our Brother’s Son is running through June 24 at the Linney in the Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.). Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday, with matinees at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For tickets, visit ourbrotherssonplay.com.
