
Arturo Luís Soria, Frankie J. Alvarez, and Ceci Fernández in Wet Brain. Photo: Joan Marcus
Fans of HBO’s recently concluded Succession who feel drawn to that show’s foundational proposition–that hurt people hurt people–will find plenty of material to support the thesis in Wet Brain. The Arizona setting is far from the international corridors of power, and working class characters have replaced the TV show’s wealthy elite, but the play’s unrelenting sibling squabbling during its patriarch’s decline echoes its small screen counterpart. Comparisons end there, though, as John J. Caswell, Jr.’s script lacks Succession’s biting humor, sharp dialogue, and relentless pacing. The play is a somewhat bland entry in the “family with inherited trauma” genre.
The premise is fairly straightforward (setting aside for the moment the possible alien abduction introduced at the show’s opening). Ricky (Arturo Luis Soria) has come home after a long absence to negotiate with his sister, Angelina (Ceci Fernández), and his older brother, Ron (Frankie J. Alvarez), over who will care for their mentally impaired, noncommunicative father. Said negotiation is complicated by past hurts, plus a familial tendency toward substance abuse and eating disorders. Every conversation hits a roadblock: Ron’s gay bashing directed at queer Ricky, or Ricky’s impulse to run away from responsibility, or everyone’s impulse to retreat to their drug of choice, including their father, Joe (Julio Monge), who has stashed water bottles filled with vodka around the house.
The three siblings spend the first hour of the play dancing around the things that they need to say to one another and instead taking cheap shots, lashing out at the others’ failures. They studiously avoid the topics they’ve never been able to touch, namely their late mother and whatever happened in the family room. It seems they will continue on in this vein forever, taking out their anger on each other and themselves through self-harm.
That’s when things take a turn for the strange. In what might be dubbed alien ex machina, the three young adults are forced to confront ugly truths they have long avoided, allowing them to break the cycle of feeling pain and causing pain. It’s a nice piece of stagecraft from director Dustin Wills, a psychedelic shift of perspective that lets the audience look down on the action, and an interesting device to allow characters to express themselves fully, unaffected for a moment by the pain of their past.
But as satisfying as it is to see these characters confront their past and resolve what needs to be resolved, the hour preceding that revelatory scene drags at times, and the bit after it feels unsatisfying for the same reason a deus ex machina rarely works in modern theater: I don’t get divine (or otherworldly) intervention in my own life, so seeing it on stage leaves me cold. When the siblings are suddenly able to discuss their past in the last scene, it feels unbelievable.
It is possible viewers who struggle with eating or addiction issues might get more out of the play (this reviewer has plenty of issues, but not those particular ones). Despite solid performances from the able cast, there’s little outside of the characters’ hurt to connect with. And though Ricky’s and Angelina’s body issues make sense as character traits, there’s so much talk about pizza that it’s easy to lose interest.
The design elements are solid. Kate Noll’s set feels appropriately claustrophobic and, combined with Cha See’s lighting, reinforces the dinginess of the family’s living situation. Sound design by Tei Blow and John Gasper communicates the rural Arizona environment nicely, though (nitpicking here) the varying amount of time it takes to get to the offstage front door chime is distracting. Still, all the design elements come together near the end of the play, when the very cool change in perspective takes place. Nick Hussong’s projections make the already disorienting stage picture delightfully more so.
It’s a shame the script isn’t able to sustain the solid premise. But I suppose if writing were easy, Succession would be the rule, rather than the exception.