The Company We Keep is
everything that I love about theatre. Really. It is stock full of what I
consider my favorite type of theatrical moment – when an audience is completely
shocked and horrified by what they are witnessing but they are laughing
hysterically at the exact same time. Beginning as a seemingly simple comedic
family play, The Company We Keep goes
to outrageous places. Playwright Jaclyn Villano finds the extraordinary in
ordinary life, and what she has written, I like to describe as a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets seriocomic
crime drama, all told with snappy TV-timing dialogue that feels so modern
American.
I’ve been very happily married for almost two years now and
I seem to be surrounded by plays discussing and questioning the dysfunctions of
the modern American family. There is something in the air, which is making our
theatre community poke and prod at our American commitment to family. This play
confronts our definitions of marital and familial bliss, and while laughing at
and with the characters, we are forced to ask: “What would we do in this
ridiculous situation?”
