Compassion, Frustration and Guilt in Next Act’s Mother-Son Drama

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Photo by Michael Brosilow

Next Act Theatre ‘The Treasurer’

Reese Madigan and Annabel Armour in Next Act Theatre's ‘The Treasurer’

Next Act Theatre journeys into the nebulous heart of parental relations with adult children as it presents The Treasurer. Playwright Max Posner explores much more than earthbound family drama. There’s a deeper, dreamy poetry to the narrative that casts echoes and reflections around life, death, love and the afterlife. Reese Madigan has a sharp sense of awareness onstage. He’s perfectly and charismatically grounded in details as he tells the audience he fully expects to die while riding a bicycle. The character that he’s playing slides dreamily through earthbound concerns. He’s moving through a poetically waking fugue in orbit around his aging mother. Annabel Armour has a clever charm about her in the role of his mother. Her husband has just died, forcing her to navigate the intricacies of a whole new chapter in her life as memory and mental acuity fade-out around the edges of her consciousness. 

Madigan manages a delicate and nuanced balance between compassion, frustration and guilt that fuels a very intricate portrayal of the drama so many adult children are forced to eventually face. Madigan and Armour’s conflict is given greater depth with heartbreakingly sensitive performances by David Flores and Alexis Green in a variety of different roles including the son’s siblings. They both trust him to look after their mother’s expenses as he’s the only one who can truly say no to her. Flores and Green also play a variety of different people who end up in the orbit of the mother as she is moved to an assisted living facility. Themes and emotions gently ripple out in every direction in a thoroughly provocative evening of theatre that engages on many levels. 

Next Act Theatre’s production of The Treasurer runs through May 19 at the space on 255 S. Water St. For ticket reservations and more, visit nextact.org/show/the-treasurer/.