The End of the Tour
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Van Dam, Aldrich
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By Joseph N. Feinstein
Now appearing on weekends at The Road Theatre Company, this play makes an impact with the very human, important story it tells. Familial conflict arises over such questions as homosexuality, divorce, and growing old, and author Joel Drake Johnson tell his tale with an earnest quality designed to hit the playgoer's nerve endings.
Director Heather Dara Williams, in her first outing in this role, establishes three separate stages in which the action takes place: the first in which Tommy (Michael Dempsey) and Chuck (Tom Knickerbocker) argue over both Chuck's impending divorce and the possible death of his cat. Friendship is given wide and positive expression in their scenes together. The second stage finds Mae's son, David (Albie Selznizk), who has come to visit his mother in the hospital with his lover, Andrew (Scot Burklin). He is attempting to disguise his gay relationship so that mother Mae ((Gwen Van Dam), will not know his true feelings. The third stage, occupying center stage, is where Mae is being attended to by her dutiful schoolteacher daughter, Jan (Rhonda Aldrich), with great conflict in her feelings toward her mother.
During these fleet, powerful ninety minutes, we are given glimpses into love and its absence, fear and its outcome, frustration and its aftermath, hatred and its consequences. Balancing humor and great pain, the story deals with people attempting to pull themselves up and out of the disappointment that has become their lives and find some resolution.
Credit must also be given to Sylvia Little as Norma, who waddles across the stage during the entire evening in her palsied, unsteady manner, not speaking a word, representing the tone of the assisted-living facility that Mae is inhabiting. She, too, will have a final, happy resolution, for Johnson ties up all the loose ends quite nicely and Ms. Williams brings down the curtain to a most satisfying conclusion.
The Road has assembled a cast of excellent actors, a script worth producing, a director whose first effort is a gem, and Ms. Little, whose hesitating steps across the stage will not be forgotten after The End of the Tour is over. You get all that and learn that the setting of the play is the birthplace of Ronald Reagan!
The End of the Tour The Road Theatre Company 5108 Lankershim Blvd. No. Hollywood 91601 Tel. 866-811-4111
Plays Friday and Saturday @ 8:00 p.m.; Sunday @ 2:00 p.m. Tickets $25 (Sr., Student, Union, Group Discounts Available. Pay-What-You-Can Nights - Feb. 8 @ 8 p.m.; Feb. 10 @ 2:00 p.m. January 18 through March 14. www.roadtheatre.org
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