Lewiston/Clarkston

B- (Lewiston C+/Clarkston B+)

These two separate but thematically related plays by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale, Pocatello) are being presented together for the first time at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Each involves a descendant of Lewis and Clark trying to find meaning by retracing the steps of their forefathers. Both have a scene set on the Fourth of July. 

In the first play, Lewiston, we meet Alice (Kristin Griffith; Animal, Da), a crusty older woman who has sold off most of the ranch that had been in the family since 1850 and is barely hanging on. The few dollars she earns from her roadside fireworks stand are supplemented by the Walgreens earnings of her 50-ish closeted roommate Connor (Arnie Burton; The 39 Steps, Machinal). She is planning to sell her remaining land to the developers of Meriwether Terrace, the condo estate going up next door. The unexpected arrival of her estranged granddaughter Marnie (Leah Karpel; The Harvest, Pocatello), whom she has not seen in over 15 years, disrupts these plans. The abrasive, condescending Marnie has sold her share of an urban farm in Seattle and wants to buy what’s left of the family property. Marnie likes to play the tapes her late mother recorded during her hike following Lewis and Clark’s steps to the Pacific. The three reach some kind of equilibrium. I found the characters less fully developed than I would have liked and their motivations less than clear. 

For the second play, Clarkston, Hunter, affectionately nicknamed the Bard of Boise because all his plays are set in Idaho, actually moves the setting across the border to Washington State. Jake (the ever youthful Noah Robbins; Brighton Beach Memoirs, “Master Harold”…and the Boys), a distant descendant of William Clark, is a recent arrival in town who has taken a job as night stock boy in the local Costco where he is being shown the ropes by Chris (Edmund Donovan; The Snow Geese), an amiable employee also in his 20’s. After graduating Bennington with a major in post-colonial gender studies, the privileged Jake has suddenly left home to follow the historic trail to the Pacific. He has stopped short of his goal to earn some money before pushing on to the ocean. Jake tells Chris that he has recently been diagnosed with early Huntington’s disease which will probably kill him before he reaches 30 and shortly after his diagnosis was dumped by his boyfriend. It turns out that Chris is furtively gay and the two begin a relationship of sorts. We next meet Chris’s mother Trish (Heidi Armbruster; Time Stands Still, Disgraced), an allegedly recovering meth addict, from whom Chris has desperately been trying to cut the cord. The climactic confrontation between mother and son is gut-wrenching. Chris and Jake find a way to comfort each other, at least for the time being.

As usual, Hunter is very compassionate toward his characters, all of whom must struggle for freedom, whether economic or sexual or from addiction. His look at life in the new West is a bleak one.

For this production, Rattlestick has gutted the theater. Dane Laffrey (Once on This Island) has designed two different performance spaces. For the first play, the audience of 51 sits on three sides of the action with a fireworks stand on the fourth. For the second, seating is in two longer facing rows with Costco shelves on both short sides. The costumes by Jessica Wegener Shay (A Kid Like Jake) are appropriate to the characters. The actors are all superb and are so close that you can practically touch them, a proximity that magnifies your connection. Between plays, the audience shares a communal meal during the 45-minute break. You can order barbecued chicken or tofu or bring your own food.

At three hours 45 minutes, it’s a very long evening, especially sitting on barely padded metal chairs. I felt that the direction by Davis McCallum (Pocatello, The Whale) was more than a little sluggish. Each play is 90 minutes, a full evening by today’s standards. I would have preferred skipping Lewiston and just seeing Clarkston, which I felt was clearly the better play.