To ensure
that their 30th season is truly innovative and a unique experience for both
artists and audience members, Vivid Stage (formerly known as Dreamcatcher Rep) is
experimenting with what live theatre can be. To that end, their production of Gemstones,
a family business saga/soap opera, will be performed in seven monthly
50-minute episodes at the Oakes Center in Summit.
Similar to
the smash HBO MAX series Succession, Gemstones is a structured,
longform improvisation series mixing comedy and drama and can be viewed in its
entirety or singly. Each performance will begin with a recap of previous
episodes, so that audience members can either view the whole series throughout
the season or drop in as they wish.
Written for
the troupe by Phoebe Farber, each monthly episode will feature recurring
characters and special guests, much like a limited series that can be found on
a streaming service, but with the freshness and excitement of live theatre.
To summarize,
the family jewelry business is in crisis, in debt to the tune of $250K.
Estelle, the matriarch, is trying to maintain the company's aesthetic of
"elegant, not fancy jewelry" in the wake of her husband's recent death and
despite her children's bickering over the future path of “Estelle Jewelry.”
Meanwhile, a pair of journalists have been invited to create content and
promote the business on social media and Jewelry Now Magazine, so the
family's dirty laundry is now embarrassingly on view. Which skeletons in whose
closets will be revealed? What romantic and financial shenanigans are brewing?
And what will the personal and financial fallout be from the rapid
transformation of the family business?
As the playwright
noted in an interview, “I was interested in the premise of a family business as the backdrop of the story. Family-run businesses are inherently dramatic and
have a lot of potential for humor and pathos. The themes I’m most interested in
exploring are loyalty, rivalry and the way family relationships reflect old
wounds that get play out in the context of running a business … Gemstones
will function like a television series. Each episode will stand on its own, but
there will be mini recaps at the beginning, in case the audience hasn’t seen
the previous episode.”
I attended
the second episode on October 23, so I had to be brought up to speed on the
events that occurred in the inaugural episode. Here’s a recap: In a tempestuous
family meeting about the finances and future of the company, in
disarray since Hal’s death, siblings Miranda and Gary tussle over money, and
Estelle and Norma, wife of the firm’s business partner Stuart, clash over
Norma’s place in the firm. Journalists Paula and Jim, invited by Estelle’s
youngest daughter Skye, arrive to create a feature for Jewelry Now
Magazine, to everyone’s surprise. Then, a stranger appears, ostensibly a
customer looking for the bathroom.
Jim and Paula
argue about their assignment and ambitions but resolve to cooperate and get to
the bottom of the family’s secrets. Norma and Jim bond over their outsider
status. Gary and Paula reveal that they met on a dating app and had a failed
date. As tensions linger, Miranda and Gary talk about the finances of the
company, as Gary pursues an investment for his new product, a nose hair clipper
called BroCuts. Miranda refuses to support him, but the anonymous stranger is
interested.
Norma and
Gary imagine what it would be like to perform in the tent fashion show Skye is
planning for the jewelry company. Miranda and Estelle’s heart-to-heart talk about
the firm’s future veers into family history and old resentments. The entire
family is aghast when the stranger reappears and announces that he is Hal’s
illegitimate grandson, Isaac Jones!
In the
episode I saw, eight characters advanced the plot, with action alternating from
side to side on the tiny stage. It should be noted that most of the
performances are over the top, often outlandish, as befits a Succession-type
production.
Amid confusion
and consternation about the cost and content of the fashion show
enthusiastic New Age devotée Skye and the firm’s creative director Billy (Becca
McLarty and Jason Szamreta) are planning with the organizer, Vincenza, played
by LuLu French with an outrageous Russian accent (“Ve need more layers!”), we
discover that Stuart (Scott McGowan with a British accent) and Miranda (an
imperious Laura Ekstrand) are cheating on their respective spouses; Stuart’s
wife Norma (flibbertigibbet Harriet Trangucci) has designed her own line of
jewelry considered too “crafty” for the company to produce and has been
forbidden to work at the store. The plot thickens when Jim offers to showcase
Norma’s jewelry with photos in Jewelry Now Magazine, without letting the
company know. And the final coup de gras occurs when a jail-house letter from Estelle’s
long-lost love Nico arrives! We will have to stay tuned (i.e., come to the
following five episodes) to see how this surprising development plays out!
Director Laura Ekstrand appears to be having great fun eliciting chew-the-scenery performances from her talented cast. Hovering over it all is matriarch Estelle, played by Noreen Farley as a battle-axe extraordinaire! Her haughty demeanor is so thick you could cut it with a knife. You can imagine her horror learning her husband had a love child and a former lover has reached out to her from jail! Harry Patrick Christian’s Jim is all about getting a story and sowing discontent between Norma and the family to uncover those salacious details he and his partner Paula (who does not appear in this episode) have been sent to dig up. McLarty and Szamreta’s youthful enthusiasm for taking the firm in new directions is especially wacky; he’s aggrieved to have his “modern” designs summarily rejected by Estelle. And Ekstrand’s stuck-up Miranda undermines her pretentiousness by calling Estelle “Mommy,” while McGowan’s British accent and formal suit sets him apart as an outsider, but an influential one at that.
I never watched HBO’s satirical black comedy Succession, but I imagine that it was great fun, with all the backstabbing, squabbling and jockeying for power, politics and money in a highly dysfunctional family. Two of these hallmarks can be found in Gemstones. The stakes may not be as high as they are in Succession, but vying for them involves cutthroat machinations, secrets that surface unexpectedly, and exaggerated, overdramatic characters. It adds up to an amusing 50 minutes presented monthly. It’s a great respite to watch family members squabble. Kinda takes our minds off whatever is troubling us!
Future episodes of Gemstones will be presented on the following dates: November 20 at 2 PM and 8 PM; January 8 at 2 PM and January 11 at 8 PM; February 28 at 8 PM; March 2 at 2 PM; April 26 at 8 PM and April 27 at 2 PM; and June 21 at 8 PM and June 22 at 2 PM. All performances will take place at the Oakes Center, 120 Morris Ave., Summit. Tickets are $33, $28 for seniors and $25 for students 25 and younger. For advance ticket purchases, go to the website. Oakes Center is wheelchair accessible; assisted listening devices and large print materials are available upon request. For information on any of Vivid Stage's programs, please call 908-514-9654, www.vividstage.org.
