By Carole Di Tosti . . .
Raising children is an act of love, sacrifice and emotional expiation. How much more so is this when a child is born with a physical condition that requires 24/7 care?
In the World Premiere of Jasper (now playing at the Pershing Square Signature Center through October 6) playwright Grant MacDermott explores the love and sacrifice of parents who face their son’s deteriorating condition in the final year of an eight-year period of decline. MacDermott raises questions that explore the impact Jasper’s condition has on his parent’s marriage and relationship. In light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision about a woman’s right to privacy, and choice to terminate a pregnancy when a fetus has severe birth defects, the play’s themes underscore questions about life, love, suffering, emotional breaking points and redemption.
Jasper reveals it isn’t only about the child. Indeed, paramount in the consideration of raising children should be the parents, who are required to be exceptional on every level, especially with an extensively debilitated child. Knowing such debilitation before birth with modern technology, should a mother terminate? Though Jasper doesn’t deal with such dilemmas, it is a sub rosa theme as we watch how parents Drew and Andrea are emotionally strained and drained to their breaking point.
Directed by Katie McHugh and presented by Yonder Window Theatre Company & Grace Street Creative Group, Jasper headlines Dominic Fumusa as Drew (Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie”; Broadway: Wait Until Dark), Abigail Hawk as Shayla (TV’s “Blue Bloods”), and Jessica Pimentel as Andrea (Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black”). Each actor exercises the outer limits of their emotional range in this heartfelt and sensitively directed production.
Though the first act might have been streamlined of its exposition to heighten the emotional impact, we understand the high stakes that Fumusa’s Drew and Pimentel’s Jessica must negotiate, as they wait for Jasper’s acceptance in a clinical trial. Indeed, the trial might improve his condition and give them release and breathing space in a life of relentless, heartbreaking pressure.
We never see Jasper. He remains a symbolic shadow, effected by the Michael Gianfrancesco’s scenic design, Robin A. Paterson’s lighting design, and John Gromada’s music and sound design. We see the bed and IV tubes behind a backlit scrim, which under flat lighting is the wall of Drew’s and Andrea’s compact New York City apartment. The effect is profound, for Jasper is but a shadow of a person which Drew later clarifies to Shayla, mother of a normal son he is drawn to play with.
Actors create the taut fear and tension whenever alarms signal imbalances with Jasper’s breathing apparatus and steady state of life. Clearly, Drew and Andrea have become used to the extraordinary demands of helping their son stay alive though he cannot walk, speak, eat or do anything for himself independently. MacDermott’s focus is on their strength and determination to bring their family to the next day with Jasper’s vital signs still intact. Thus, they live with the prospect of death daily, a death which is on their heads if they make a mistake with his care. They are accountable. What toll does it take on all the three of them, who are living for each other?
When Drew meets Shayla and forms an attachment and quasi friendship with her, we understand the extent Drew feels devastated about Jasper. Drew enjoys playing with Shayla’s son who is active and normal. When Andrea discovers a clue that Drew has met and spent time with Shayla and her son, complications arise. Each character is roiled. The ensemble works exquisitely and believably to portray characters who attempt to understand each other’s feelings and engage or disengage to salvage their sanity.
Under MacDermott’s microscope with these superb actors, we are led to ask ourselves these questions. Do we have their humanity? How might we have performed under such circumstances? Thus, when it appears that Jasper has been accepted into the clinical trial, we are relieved for them as they joy over this new hope. However, hopes are dashed. Once more reality sets in. And the death and life struggles continue . . . but for how long?
The production is one to see for its acting, staging and the hard questions that MacDermott raises. Stylized, suggestive and subtle, the production works because of its thematic grist and power.
Jasper. Through October 6 at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues). Two hours, plus one 15 minute intermission. www.yonderwindow.co/jasper
Photos: Russ Rowland
