The Sand Castle

The Sandcastle – Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader 1/15/09 – “This rare revival of Lanford Wilson’s 1965 one-act has the feel of an agreeably lazy afternoon with a better-than-average short story from The New Yorker. The ingredients–a vaguely bohemian family on the verge of emotional collapse, repressed (or regretted) sexual impulses, a rather large metaphor in the form of collapsing cliffs near said family’s scruffy beachfront home in southern California–have an easy familiarity to them. Wilson’s self-conscious stabs at metatheatricality in the form of direct addresses to the audience don’t derail the wistful charms of Brian Golden’s likable Theatre Seven of Chicago production. The play’s not a lost masterpiece, but it’s not a waste of time, either, and each actor delivers at least one finely tuned moment of touching vulnerability”

The Sandcastle – Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago 1/15/09 – “A chunk of sandstone cliff has broken off into the southern California sea; in a nearby beachside home, a family likewise erodes in a series of small tidal laps ending in a dramatic collapse. The Renoldses enjoy a seemingly serene existence outside San Diego with a semi-adopted extended family—until it all falls apart.

Wilson’s seldom-revived one-act debuted at New York’s La Mama in 1965, a product of his early career concurrent with the gritty urban drama Balm in Gilead yet as domestically focused as his better plays of the late ’70s. As is so often the case, it’s an academic pleasure to see a major playwright’s minor work revived. But The Sand Castle works best as a demonstration of what Wilson improved upon elsewhere.

The playwright shows off some of the formal experiments he would refine in later work, but tics such as characters announcing their awareness of themselves as characters are more self-conscious and jarring here. It’s difficult to track relationships among the characters, owing as much to Golden’s surface-skimming, keep-moving direction as to Wilson’s own shortcomings. And both Golden’s staging and Wendy Silva’s scenic design work against the challenges of the Chopin basement instead of with them, making every seat an obstructed view.

Still, there are some affecting moments, even if Wilson stretches to find them and we crane to see them. Golden handles Wilson’s penchant for simultaneous action well enough, while Robin Kacyn and David Raymond as two of the Renolds kids sculpt charming portrayals from Wilson’s loose grains.”

From the Director – On a quiet California beach, the Renolds family spends a wistful summer evening gossiping, studying and singing forgotten songs. But in the twilight, the Earth is moving.

Matriarch Irene faces a life-changing decision, and Sunset Cliffs won’t be the only thing a summer storm brings crashing to the ground.

In the mold of Chekhov’s great plays, American legend Lanford Wilson delivers a forgotten classic of American theatre, at once rustic, riveting and heartbreaking.