Next Act Tackles Parent-Child Complications with ‘The Treasurer’

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Photo Courtesy of A.J. Magoon

Rehearsal for Next Act Theatre's 'The Treasurer'

Rehearsal for Next Act Theatre's 'The Treasurer'

Physical distance and emotional disengagement are increasingly common barriers between family member in today’s society. The theme is central to Max Posner’s The Treasurer, a 2017 Off-Broadway success that makes its Milwaukee debut this month at Next Act Theatre. 

Sometimes sad, sometimes funny but always smart, The Treasurer will also be the Milwaukee directorial debut for Next Act’s artistic director, Cody Estle, who arrived in town from Chicago’s Raven Theatre in time to program Next Act’s 2023-24 season. “I’ve been focused on getting a grip on Next Act and on the community,” he says. “I feel it’s the right time,” he adds, to step away from administration and wrap his hand around a play. 

In The Treasurer, Ida is an aging woman, lonely, in failing health and going broke. Her estranged middle-aged son intervenes in the unwanted role as the keeper of her pocketbook. “Halfway through the play you find that the son doesn’t love his mother,” Estle says. “When I first read The Treasurer, I found that fascinating. ‘How can that be? Society tells us that we have to love our parents!’” Ida left when the son was only 13 and remarried. “It’s not that he doesn’t love her but what is their love in this complicated relationship? They have been absent from each other’s lives for many years and are suddenly forced to communicate about problems that were left unresolved.” 

Posner is known for his ambitious plays on contemporary family life, some of them darkly comedic or satirical. He’s often less concerned with conventional plot mechanisms than what he once described as “mysterious states of being.” His writing can upset audience expectations. 

Estle describes his staging of The Treasurer as “stark.” Mother and son mostly communicate by phone, “but suddenly they are forced to be in the same room,” he adds. Chicago’s award-winning Annabel Armour stars as Ida and Reese Madigan, a familiar face for Next Act fans, costars as the Son. Other parts are played by Raven Theatre’s Alexis Green and Milwaukee favorite David Flores, making his debut with Next Act. 

“It’s a play everyone can relate to. It’s universal,” Estle says. “We all have complicated feelings about our families. People will see themselves in the characters.”