'The Humans' at Hampstead Theatre

Last week we went to see 'The Humans' at Hampstead Theatre. This is the play I saw in a touring version in Boston back in March this year with the last of the winter snow piled up outside the theatre doors. I was muffled up in a scarf and big coat but I was in sandals and shorts to see this version which was played by the Broadway cast on a much smaller stage in Hampstead.

It's the tale of the Blake family's first Thanksgiving dinner at Brigit, the youngest daughter's new apartment in Chinatown in New York. Brigit and her partner have just moved in and haven't finished unpacking yet but they host Brigit's grandmother, parents and older sister for the traditional dinner. We see traditions and hear home truths, long-standing jokes and family niggles, the awkwardness of the new member trying to fit in (Brigit's partner) as well as the grandmother suffering from dementia. Transpose this to a Christmas dinner in the UK and you have the equivalent.

As soon as I saw the set showing two floors and a spiral staircase it all came flooding back from when I saw it in Boston. But this was a different cast, a cast that had worked together for a long time and lived the play in a different way and that was obvious after the first few minutes. Even though this was a preview, the cast gelled in a good way, they were a family already and acted like it, playing off one another. I particularly liked the relationship of sisters Aimee and Brigit, sharing cares and jokes, the religious mother Deidre and the stoic father Erik. They were very believable as a family with the little jokes and hurts that define families. I loved the way that Aimee's loss of her girlfriend is treated like any family break-up and the grandmother having dementia is just another trial thrown at the family by life. Neither are pointed at or made special in way and Erik, the father, consoles Aimee after an awkward phone call.

The writing by Stephen Karam is spot on and very naturalistic and the acting was excellent. I particularly liked Cassie Beck as Aimee, Jayne Houdyshell as the mother and Reed Birney as the father. The writing and the winning performances drew me in and made me a silent viewer to the family scenes I watched. I thoroughly enjoyed this production and might well go back for seconds later in the run. Go and see it if you can.

'The Humans' at the Shubert Theater, Boston

My final play in Boston was 'The Humans' at the Shubert Theatre. 'The Humans' is on tour following an award-wining run on Broadway and I caught it on its visit to Boston. I wasn't really sure what to expect so I was in for some surprises.

It's a simple tale of a family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner but, for the first time, this isn't in the family home but rather at the daughter's new apartment in Manhattan, so new, very little is unpacked yet. It's a small cast of characters with Erik and Deirdre as the parents, Aimee and Brigid as the two daughters, Richard as Brigid's partner and 'Momo', the grandmother with dementia. The apartment block is old and decrepit but quite spacious and Aimee says they're lucky to get in in New York these days.There are creaks and light bulb problems and the old lady upstairs makes a lot of noise.

Home truths soon start leaking as the family talks and gathers round the table, up and downstairs to the bathroom and living room and people talk endlessly, including over each other far too often for my liking. There are a lot of words in this play. Brigid is a bit resentful that her parents haven't helped her financially with getting a place to live, the daughters laugh together about random articles their mother emails to them, Dad makes bad jokes and Brigid tells her sister about her partner's need to make lists and tell her his dreams. Little frictions and niggles build and get glossed over and Erik is goaded into telling his family about the dreams of a weird, faceless woman that have been disturbing his sleep.

This goes on for some time, keeping the tension building amongst the jokes and laughs, the problems of the new apartment and the Catholic mother's little comments about her daughter not being married and in a stable relationship. Something's going to happen any minute, I kept thinking, the play is moving us towards something, but I couldn't guess what. And then the father comes clean and tells his daughters that he's cheated on their mother. With a prostitute. And has lost his job and pension after 28 years working with a private school with a morality clause in the contract. And they can't afford to move to the new house now and can't afford the bills for his mother with dementia and need to move into a small apartment themselves. The daughters are devastated by this bombshell, delivered while their mother is upstairs seeing to the needs of their grandmother. Throughout all this, I just thought 'what a brave man' for admitting all this so candidly and calmly.

Then the visit is over and they rush to get ready for the cab to take them home since Dad has been drinking and the light bulb blows, leaving him alone downstairs, with the odd sounds of the apartment building around him. He bumbles round and sits down in the dark, with the only light coming from the basement door that he's wedged open and we see a woman walk slowly across the corridor outside, but he doesn't. Tension is really mounting by this stage and, suddenly, the lights all go out and we start clapping. The end. Phew!

At first I didn't think I was going to like the play but it slowly wound me in until by the end I was hooked. It's very well constructed to build up the tension almost without us noticing until we get the bombshell. It included some lovely moments as well, with Dad consoling daughter Aimee over recently splitting with her girlfriend without making a thing out of it and also the almost throwaway moments of Momo's dementia and the touching letter to her granddaughters she wrote four years ago which Dad reads out. It's nothing special, just life carrying on as it does. The flow and tension was helped by it playing as one act with no interval.

I liked Richard Thomas as Dad Erik and Therese Plaehn as daughter Aimee but was less keen on Daisey Eagan as Brigid who's voice was too high and light and frequently got lost. I wasn't too keen on the 'let's all talk over one another' sections, particularly in the first half - do Americans really talk like that at home? It was also the rudest audience I've been with for a long time, talking, repeating lines,, shuffling round swapping seats and especially those arriving 15 minutes late for an 8pm start. They'd settled down towards the end but good grief people!

I'm not sure whether the play would work over here in London since it is so very American, but who knows? If it does transfer then I'd definitely like to see it again. It was written by Stephen Karam who I know nothing about but will certainly be interested in seeing anything else he does.