Review: "The Lyons" -- Eclipse Theatre Company

   I think about the kinds of relationships depicted in a script like Nicky Silver’s dark comedy, “The Lyons”, and wonder if real people would actually be that blatantly outspoken in admitting their flaws and accusing each other of bad behavior. With a script this good, it really doesn’t seem to matter.

    Director Kathy Sturm has done an outstanding job in coaching her actors with their attitudes and characterizations in Eclipse Theatre Company’s current production.  Brooklyn native Marcella Balin begins somewhat haltingly, but once the audience starts laughing, she settles in and delivers the power and punch with the correct accent and demeanor of the Jewish matriarch who is annoyingly unflappable, even while everybody peppers her with angry invectives.  

   Jim McCullough is both compelling and convincing as the dying patriarch who no longer cares about courtesies,  constantly cursing at everybody, except his nurse (Danielle Filas) who is a dynamo of  professionalism.  I found myself thinking what a good sport McCullough is to stay in what seems like a very uncomfortable position, propped up in that hospital bed for almost an hour during the first act.  But then he’s supposed to be uncomfortable, because he’s dying. And he's a good actor doing what it takes to play the role effectively.

    Christopher Storer deftly displays pitiable and exasperating as the gay son, Curtis, whose imaginary friends, as well as his family, never seem to play nice with him.

   Meloney Buehl has good stage presence and commitment as the alcoholic Lisa who is equally incapable of having any kind of reasonable relationship.

   Donnie Lockwood is credible with good bearing in the many moods of Realtor Brian.

   The setting is simple and effective with furnishings of the hospital room that get covered over with drop cloths for the empty apartment scene.

   “The Lyons” premiered and ran in New York off Broadway for two months in 2011, then two months on Broadway in 2012 and for a three-month London run in 2013.  In its review of the off-Broadway premier, Variety wrote that the basic joke of this savage dark comedy is that characters are given license to speak their private thoughts out loud. 

  If/when people have behaved as badly with one another as the Lyons family apparently has for most of their lives, their callousness and the horrible things they say and do to each other don’t seem that outrageous. It frees the audience to laugh out loud in this very entertaining piece of theater.