Noah Galvin, a former Evan Hansen on Broadway who starred in the TV shows The Real O’Neals and The Good Doctor, delivers a star-making performance in the new dramedy The Reservoir that recalls the work of the young Matthew Broderick. He paces the stage for the entire length of the new play, frequently addressing the audience to elicit sympathy and express his befuddlement at how he’s been drawn into a cycle of self-destructive behavior to quiet the overactive voices in his head. It’s a disarmingly winsome performance that brings freshness to a story that returns to well-trod ground.
Jake Brasch’s play hits familiar beats in the alcohol addiction narrative: Galvin’s Josh, on medical leave from NYU after one too many blackout benders, is passed out on stage before the show even begins. But Brasch also finds fresh ways to tell that story while introducing additional elements that deepen our understanding of Josh’s mental state. Chief among them is his relationship with his four grandparents, most of whom are in various stages of dementia that he desperately hopes to “fix” while ostensibly working on his own recovery.
His chief project is his beloved cookie-baking nana (Mary Beth Peil, ever delightful), now in a nursing home and mostly nonverbal, while her husband (Peter Maloney) rolls his eyes at his grandson’s attempted interventions with vegan diet plans and the like. (Luckily, we also get fantasy-induced scenes where Peil’s nana offers very cogent advice to her grandson — and where the glimmer in her eyes returns to her face.) Meanwhile, Josh coaches his other grandfather (Chip Zien, an elfen mensch) to memorize a Torah portion for a very belated bar mitzvah despite how difficult it is for him to lock in new memories. Naturally, it’s the one grandparent who’s still in control of her faculties (Caroline Aaron, sassy and no-nonsense) who calls Josh on his BS and helps him to take responsibility for his actions.
She teaches another lesson too, helping him to recognize how the adults he had grown up seeing in the blinkered way of a child are individuals with deeper, more complicated lives than he ever imagined. That in turn helps him to identify other blind spots in his life, like his relationship with his frustrated but empathetic mother (Heidi Armbruster) and an improbably tolerant colleague at the bookstore where he works (Matthew Saldívar).
Under Shelley Butler’s fluid direction, Galvin smoothly moves between the beats of the story, which flows with an internal logic as Josh’s awareness of his situation gradually sinks in. The overall production enhances the effect, from Takeshi Kata’s simple, sheer curtain-lined set to Sara Ryung Clement’s original music and sometimes jarring sound design. Lighting designer Jiyoung Chang enhances the mood of each scene, subtly underscoring Josh’s riffs about sunrises before abruptly shifting to the stark, blue-white light of a morning-after hangover.
Aptly for an authentic story about recovery, The Reservoir doesn’t settle for a safe, unadulterated happy ending. There are many setbacks on Josh’s road to recovery and some burned bridges that he’s unable to reassemble. But Galvin is such a confident, bright-eyed presence that we find ourselves rooting for him even when he is screwing up. And therefore our joy is all the greater when, by the end, he achieves a tentative, one-day-at-a-time measure of success. ★★★★☆
THE RESERVOIR
Atlantic Theater Company, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Tickets on sale through March 22 for $57 to $132
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