Tony Glazer's play makes its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company
Wash the windows. Vacuum the carpets. Discuss remodeling the bathroom. Anything to keep your mind off the relentless problems at hand. Why face life's painful challenges when there is landscaping design to be considered?
This is the tenuous and fraught existence that young married couple Donna (Susan Maris) and Paul (Christopher Daftsios) have carved out for themselves in Tony Glazer's delicate and poignant new play "The Substance of Bliss," now receiving an excellent world premiere at Long Branch's New Jersey Repertory Company.
We discover the couple sitting in their meticulously appointed suburban backyard, resting after a long cleaning session and turning their attention wistfully to what they might do next to improve their home. Maybe they'll paint the living room or install tin ceiling tiles in the bathroom, but Donna's frequent nervous checks of her watch betray an anxiety lying not far below the surface.
Soon we learn that the couple is busying themselves cleaning in the wee hours of the morning in order to pass the time of nervous hope that their drug-addicted, 15-year-old son will turn up at home. This is not the first time he has disappeared, and they have already called the police and checked out his frequent haunts, so now all they can do is wait. And clean. And try their absolute best not to engage their problems head on.
Eventually those problems -- which turn out to be more than just worry for their son -- force themselves to the surface, but the strength of this play is how playwright, cast, and director Evan Bergman combine to show us Donna and Paul's utter desperation to forestall that inevitability. It seems as clear to the couple as it is to the audience that their compulsion with improving their physical surroundings grows out of an utter incapacity to address their emotional condition, but they are for the most part resigned to that shared failing, and hope against hope that they can avoid discussing it.
Maris and Daftsios both rise to the daunting task of expressing their characters' deepest fears and worries as they mutually avoid the subject. Glazer does not deny his characters emotional outbursts, but the play and its cast are at their collective best when they are exploring the vast chasm between the couple's speciously pleasant outward life and their terrified inward existence.
Their backyard (designed with a keen eye for suburban fastidiousness by Jessica Parks) is constructed and curated with as much care as they have built their lives, but even that serene space rings clearly hollow with the constant absence of the third member of their family.
With the support of strong performances and direction, Glazer's play achieves an impressive feat of examining the lives of its characters at once deeply and subtly. This is a play about how the facade of happiness can belie a cracked and crumbling foundation that demands repair. Donna and Paul are not fools: They are well aware that their foundation requires some challenging work. But it is far less difficult to apply another coat of paint to the facade.
"The Substance of Bliss" therefore shows us with great insight and unromantic compassion the daunting task of these characters girding themselves to face the challenges they know lie in their future. But hey: What about putting in a pool?!
The Substance of Bliss
The New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch, through Feb. 14.
Tickets: $45. Available online.
Patrick Maley may be reached at patrickjmaley@gmail.com. Find him on Twitter @PatrickJMaley. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook