One way to grapple with the mostly white, mostly male classics of American drama is to rethink them entirely, from a female point of view. That’s the mission of Julia May Jonas in a A Woman Among Women, an updated spin on Arthur Miller’s All My Sons built around the well-respected founder of a women’s wellness center. (She previously offered a sisterly take on Sam Shepard’s True West with the understated title Problems Between Sisters.) Cleo, played by Dee Pelletier with the plain-spoken authority of a woman who’s accustomed to having people look up to her, is just as genial and commanding a presence as Miller’s morally compromised industrialist Joe Keller.
The story unfolds on the back porch of Cleo’s home in a progressive enclave of Western Massachusetts where real estate values, she tells us early on, have increased seven-fold since she bought in the late 1970s. On one side of her lives a lawyer (Brittany K. Allen) and her stay-at-home wife (Lucy Kaminsky). On the other side, there’s a physician who works at Cleo’s center (Hannah Heller) and her aspiring musician/full-time dad husband (Drew Lewis). Cleo and her platonic live-in “sister comrade” Tina (Tina Chilip, nicely feisty) have raised two now-grown daughters: Jo, a violent felon in prison after nearly killing a man in a road-rage incident, and good-girl Grace (Zoë Geltman), who yearns to break out of her buttoned-up persona and has recently gotten cozy with Jo’s estranged husband, Roy (Gabriel Brown), who’s been raising their young daughter on his own.
Jonas imagines one-to-one stand-ins for Miller’s original characters, including an 8-year-old neighbor girl (Morgan Siobhan Green) who’s not a blood relation to anyone else and does little to advance the plot. Still, it’s exciting to see how she updates Miller’s thematic concerns with morality, regret, and the conflict between individual and collective responsibility. Jo had been treating her psychiatric issues at the time she snapped and beat up an elderly driver; perhaps there was some mistake in her lithium prescription that might mitigate her culpability. Tina and many of the neighbors want to investigate further and file an appeal; Cleo, meanwhile, is eager to wash her hands of a child who was out of control in ways that embarassed her.
But May is so wedded to the structure of her inspiration that the drama wanders lackadaisically for the first hour until the riveting final third — when it becomes clear that Cleo herself may have played a significant role in Jo’s outburst. Granted, her complicity pales in comparison to Joe Keller deliberately shipping defective airline parts that led to the deaths of 21 U.S. pilots in World War II (and then forcing his friend and business partner to shoulder the blame alone). But there are real stakes here, including potential fallout for Cleo’s center and all the good work it does.
Director Sarah Cameron Hughes admirably maintains a steady pace, but she’s hampered not only by the lopsided script but also by the sudden tonal shifts. A central element of Jonas’s 21st-century approach to the story is to reject traditional theatermaking for a more communal experience where actors plop themselves down in lawn chairs beside members of the audience seated on the stage, as if this were a backyard cookout or a group therapy session in Cleo’s center. Cleo and others frequently address us directly, or burst into songs (composed by Brian Cavanagh-Strong) that blur the lines between spoken-word and folk ditties. Characters break the fourth wall in other ways, too, as when Roy’s mom (Green again) arrives with a Dunkin’ box and declares that she’s bringing “some complications. I mean munchkins.” As it happens, the complications she brings are more vibe-based than true revelations. The revelations still come tumbling out, in a compressed rush that leaves little time for characters to process or take sides.
Just before the big climactic final act, the show dispenses with its lo-fi roots, moves theatergoers from their seats in the playing area, and wheels out an actual back porch (designed by Brittany Vasta) that evokes a more traditional proscenium experience. This is all scripted, part of Jonas’s intent, but it’s puzzling for a writer who declares that “naturalistic settings would not be a friend to the play.” (I’m not sure I agree, but she’s apparently unaware how much good will is lost having Lewis lead the audience in a cringey syncopated clapping exercise to fill time during this changeover.)
While I wish that A Woman Among Women had embraced a single aesthetic approach and worn its inspiration more loosely, I admire how Jonas invites us to consider familiar conflicts in new ways. What are the challenges, both within our communities and our personal consciences, that would resonate with the mid-20th-century figures of Miller’s lifetime? And would female protagonists react any differently, with more nuance or less dogmatism? These are fascinating, even important questions — and Jonas poses them with considerable skill. ★★★☆☆
A WOMAN AMONG WOMEN
LCT’s Claire Tow Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission
Tickets on sale through June 28 for $40