Writer: Lyle Kessler
Director: Al Miller
Two adult brothers, Treat and Phillip, live together in a house in North Philadelphia. Their carefully managed Pennsylvanian accents, voice-coached by Rebecca Clark Carney, take a few minutes to tune into.
Philip (Fred Woodley Evans) is cowering, anxious and unable to leave the house, although fascinated by the street outside. Treat (Chris Walley) – all aggression and control – is a professional mugger bringing home what they need to live on. Then one day, he kidnaps drunken Harold (Forbes Masson), who is cleverer than Treat. He quickly sobers up and takes charge. Lyle Kessler’s 1983 play is a powerful, often darkly funny, exploration of fraternity, loss and family – all three men are orphans – along with the dynamics of power. And the dialogue is admirably pacey.
As Treat, Walley is an exceptionally eloquent listener. He can communicate a whole raft of emotional depth with the tiniest twitch of a facial muscle or subtle body movement. And Phillip is supposed to be disturbed, vulnerable and backward, but he has potential which Harold recognises and exploits. Woodley Evans brings a hollow-eyed attentiveness to Phillip, and it’s riveting to watch. As Harold, actually a long-exiled gangster from Chicago, Masson does the bright-eyed, almost mercurial, manipulation very well.
All three characters are, in a sense, tragic, and director Al Miller knows exactly how to point that out by allowing silence to speak. He also uses every inch of Jermyn Street Theatre’s wide but awkward playing space to interesting effect, especially during the fight scenes (fight director Enric Ortuno), with actors almost spinning across the stage at times.
Sarah Beaton’s set is ingenious. There has to be a window which opens for Phillip to look out of, and it’s neatly contrived here. So is the table, which moves centre stage for Act 2, which is set two weeks later.
Anyone new to this modern American classic will struggle to anticipate the ending. In Miller’s hands, it’s as poignant, moving and unexpected as it could be.
Runs until: 24 January 2026
