Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

There are father-son stories, and there are stories about love. The theatre Q production of David Stevens? The Sum of Us is both. It just so happens that in this story, the son is gay.

In a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, widower Harry (Peter Cieply) lives with his 24-year old son Jeff (Ryan Tasker), and both of them are looking for love. Jeff thinks he may have found it at the pub with Greg (Scott Cox), while Harry found Joyce (Sylvia Kratins) through a dating service. The future of their love lives may be uncertain, but the young gay plumber and his frank, amazingly accepting father can be certain they have each other.

As Jeff, Tasker is a lean footballer (that?s ?rugby player? to us Yanks). His performance is anything but lean, however, as he sensitively embodies the role that Russell Crowe tackled in the 1994 film version of the play. Tender and genuine throughout, he delivers lines with fitting warmth and humor in addition to a solid Australian dialect. As his father, Cieply is convincing and endearing if slightly awkward. As with Tasker, Cieply is equally at home with the wit and the pathos of the play. As for their love interests, Cox?s Greg is a winning charmer. Kratins is sincere as Joyce but stumbles somewhat with the dialect and with her physicality.

Dale Albright ably helms the production, guiding the nuanced performances. The staging is predominantly natural and believable. Though the piece is filled with monologues in which the characters relive past experiences, Albright along with Tasker and Cieply handle the challenge of maintaining energy and momentum through these passive speeches extremely well. The show conveys serious messages about living and loving, but Albright does not get heavy-handed. He allows the characters and the story to carry the messages gently, and therefore compellingly, to the audience.

Albright?s set is not perfectly executed, but it does adequately represent Harry and Jeff?s home. There is a particularly delightful ?feature wall? which is filled with family photos on loan from the actors, lending believability and charm to the set. The sound design, also by Albright, is a little erratic in terms of suggesting the time period, but despite the music seeming a bit stereotypical, Albright chooses fun pop tunes (ABBA, anyone?). The sound cue during Jeff?s end-of-first-act monologue is particularly lovely. Joanna Ben-Yisrael?s lighting is slightly distracting as actors walk through dark patches between area lights, but we quickly forgive the dim spots and focus on the performances.

The Sum of Us is a quiet, funny, moving, slice-of-life view into the lives of a father and son that resonates even after we leave the theatre. Whether you?re gay or straight, if you enjoy theatre of honesty and heart, see The Sum of Us playing now through May 20 at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Performing Arts in Walnut Creek. Call (925) 943-7469 or go to www.dlrca.org to purchase tickets. For more information about the show or theatre Q, visit www.theatreq.org.

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