On the one-year anniversary of her husband’s disappearance, Valerie (Kirsten Fitzgerald) must deal with her shady pharmacist daughter Midge (Missi Davis), her eccentric police-officer sister-in-law Gail (Natalie West) and the new arrivals in the neighborhood—her long-absent brother-in-law Donal (H.B. Ward) and his timid wife Sevenly (Lara Phillips). The rumor in town is that she had a hand in her husband going missing.
Chatting (or, more often, fighting) around the worn dining table in scenic designer Grant Sabin’s perfectly homely working-class kitchen, the characters in Marisa Wegrzyn’s visceral dark comedy feel like they stumbled out of a twisted sitcom world somewhere between “Fargo” and “Roseanne” (and not just because the show-stealing West was a cast member on the latter). Director Shade Murray has his more-than-capable ensemble play it a bit broad throughout, which ups the laughter quotient considerably but makes for a bit of a slowdown whenever things get serious. Still, the show is consistently captivating, with spontaneously funny dialogue and plenty of surprises. (Zach Freeman)
Dueling in Dystopia: A Review of "Last Hermanos" at A Red Orchid Theatre Two Mexican American brothers who've grown up separately in the United States are together on the run, hoping to make it across the border to Mexico and escape the unfriendly confines that our country has become in a not-too-distant dystopian future.
