‘That Face’ looks at a chaotic family

Laila Robins heads a household from hell in a perfectly nasty British drama

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

An insane comedy-drama, "That Face" was written by British newcomer Polly Stenham when she was 19 years old. It's scary to contemplate how Stenham, now 23, could have learned about some of the sick stuff that seeps through her unsettling play.

A cracked portrait of a crazy family, "That Face" begins with a nasty scene of prep school hazing and gets ever more dark and twisted over the next 95 minutes.

Opening Tuesday at Manhattan Theatre Club's space at City Center, "That Face" is one of those love-it or hate-it sort of shows. The story is cruel, the style is extreme and the acting is very intense.

Hazing a classmate right into the hospital, teenager Mia is expelled from school and returns to a posh, disorderly household dominated by Martha, her liquor and pills-ingesting monster of a mother. A beautiful and damned creature, the ceaselessly raging Martha ignores Mia while harboring a nearly incestuous adoration for her adorable 18 year-old son Henry, who desperately tries to be her caretaker.

Where's long-divorced daddy? Flying in from Hong Kong with the idea of consigning Martha to an institution. In the meantime, Martha raves away, beleaguered Henry goes through hell and Mia sniggers at everyone's woes. Redemption for anybody here? Ha.

Stenhem writes fiercely and heartlessly and director Sarah Benson's stylized approach and intensive pacing gives the dark comedy a relentless quality. Moodily lit with eloquent shadows by Tyler Micoleau, designer David Zinn's sharply-angled setting features a vastly rumpled bed at center stage and glossily suggests a mansion gone to seed.

Lending her regal looks and rich voice to the erratic, smothering character of Martha, Laila Robins evokes the grandeur of a ravaged classical statue of Venus or Phaedra. A longtime favorite at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, Robins' fearless, feverish portrayal of a madwoman gives "That Face" a dark star the other actors can whirl around.

Christopher Abbott's sweet, rather hapless Henry and Cristin Milioti's contemptuous Mia contrast well as Martha's appalled children. Arriving late in the story, Victor Slezak cuts a cool figure as their dad. Betty Gilpin depicts a vicious sorority girl so perfectly you'll want to slap her.

For that matter, everyone in the company whips through the drama's increasingly sordid doings with a good deal of class. You might well hate the play but you can't help but admire the production.

"That Face" continues through June 27 at MTC at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th St., New York. Call (212) 581-1212 or visit www.manhattantheatreclub.com.