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Pen - Acting Edition
PEN is about a Long Island family at a pivotal moment in their lives. Confined to a wheelchair, Helen and her son, Matt, are locked in a relationship where love, guilt, recriminations and the ever-present desire to make things right all share centerstage. When it's time to apply to college, Helen tries to hold tightly to her son by influencing his enrollment in a nearby college, while her ex-husband Jerry tries to get the boy into USC, thinking that Matt needs to get some distance from his mother. In addition, Jerry is about to marry his new girlfriend and has yet to figure out how to tell them. Caught in the middle of all this is Matt. What happens next is at once unexpected and inevitable. The relationship between mother and son takes a mysterious turn, allowing the three of them to consider options that were up to now impossible. Will Matt make it to college? Will Jerry get remarried or will Helen and he get back together? PEN is a sly, perceptive play about the deep bonds that hold a family together and the harsh truths that tear them apart.
72 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 27, 2022
David Marshall Grant's play Pen examines how much we owe to others. It's a big question, and Grant's exploration of it is often satisfyingly rich and challenging.
He does so, mostly, within the framework of a broken home. Matt, 17, is the only son of divorced parents. His father Jerry, lives in Greenwich Village; he's a psychologist who doesn't spend enough time with Matt and is, in fact, about to remarry. Helen, Matt's mom, has Multiple Sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair. Matt shows signs of being troubled--his grades aren't great, he doesn't seem to have any real friends, and he's been arrested at least one time for shoplifting. But, as we meet him and Helen in the play's opening scene, he appears to be reasonably contented, cheerfully doing all the things for his mother that can't she do for herself (cooking dinner, helping her off with her coat, lifting her out of her chair and onto the couch). There's a compassionate pragmatism at play here rather than resignation. But Matt's situation is about to turn more desperate.
Matt's a high school senior, and he wants to go to college in California. His mother, however, wants him to go to SUNY-Stonybrook, located just a few minutes away from their Long Island home. Matt theorizes that Helen doesn't want him to ever leave; that she needs him to stay with her and care for her. Helen says that she's just thinking about what's best for Matt. Both are right, of course. But Matt's quandary remains central and unresolved: what's his obligation to Helen? Where are the boundaries? When does it stop?
Pen is most interesting, though, when it takes a broader view of these questions. Helen is a great believer in liberal causes. When does her righteousness impede on Matt's (or others') rights? Consider this exchange, brought on when they happen on a TV clip of Bob Hope entertaining troops in Vietnam (Pen is set in 1969).
What he doesn't manage, unfortunately, is a satisfactory arc for Matt's story. The first act of Pen concludes with a neat twist that I won't reveal here that I didn't find adequately accounted for in Act Two. The second half of the play mostly dispenses with the useful contextualization of Matt and Helen's issues within the larger world beyond them, focusing instead very squarely on Helen's self-actualization. This shift hurts the piece, I think, and it's accompanied by a change in perspective, from Matt's anguished but compassionate eye on two flawed parents to a more objective and adult view of a woman coping with betrayal and illness. Pen begins as a memory play, a worthy successor to coming-of-age plays like The Glass Menagerie and Broadway Bound, but it ends up feeling more like a Movie of the Week.
Nevertheless, there's plenty of food for thought here, as well as more wit, intellect, and compelling entertainment value than a lot of new plays can provide.
He does so, mostly, within the framework of a broken home. Matt, 17, is the only son of divorced parents. His father Jerry, lives in Greenwich Village; he's a psychologist who doesn't spend enough time with Matt and is, in fact, about to remarry. Helen, Matt's mom, has Multiple Sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair. Matt shows signs of being troubled--his grades aren't great, he doesn't seem to have any real friends, and he's been arrested at least one time for shoplifting. But, as we meet him and Helen in the play's opening scene, he appears to be reasonably contented, cheerfully doing all the things for his mother that can't she do for herself (cooking dinner, helping her off with her coat, lifting her out of her chair and onto the couch). There's a compassionate pragmatism at play here rather than resignation. But Matt's situation is about to turn more desperate.
Matt's a high school senior, and he wants to go to college in California. His mother, however, wants him to go to SUNY-Stonybrook, located just a few minutes away from their Long Island home. Matt theorizes that Helen doesn't want him to ever leave; that she needs him to stay with her and care for her. Helen says that she's just thinking about what's best for Matt. Both are right, of course. But Matt's quandary remains central and unresolved: what's his obligation to Helen? Where are the boundaries? When does it stop?
Pen is most interesting, though, when it takes a broader view of these questions. Helen is a great believer in liberal causes. When does her righteousness impede on Matt's (or others') rights? Consider this exchange, brought on when they happen on a TV clip of Bob Hope entertaining troops in Vietnam (Pen is set in 1969).
HELEN: I can't watch this. It's wrong.Later, Helen is able to rationalize hating the car Jerry buys for Matt because it's German and she hasn't forgiven them for the Holocaust yet. She even finds a way to blame Matt, indirectly, for their (presumably black) maid's lack of education and status. She's right, of course; but as Matt explains, "I'm a high school senior. I'm not responsible for our maid's illiteracy." Grant manages a shrewd and subtle examination of social responsibility and its constant companion, hypocrisy, that gives his play real teeth.
MATT: It's hilarious.
HELEN: It's not hilarious. It's wrong. Half those kids are going to be killed tomorrow and he's telling jokes.
MATT: He's a comedian.
HELEN: The Smothers Brothers are comedians. He's a company man.
What he doesn't manage, unfortunately, is a satisfactory arc for Matt's story. The first act of Pen concludes with a neat twist that I won't reveal here that I didn't find adequately accounted for in Act Two. The second half of the play mostly dispenses with the useful contextualization of Matt and Helen's issues within the larger world beyond them, focusing instead very squarely on Helen's self-actualization. This shift hurts the piece, I think, and it's accompanied by a change in perspective, from Matt's anguished but compassionate eye on two flawed parents to a more objective and adult view of a woman coping with betrayal and illness. Pen begins as a memory play, a worthy successor to coming-of-age plays like The Glass Menagerie and Broadway Bound, but it ends up feeling more like a Movie of the Week.
Nevertheless, there's plenty of food for thought here, as well as more wit, intellect, and compelling entertainment value than a lot of new plays can provide.
August 8, 2008
While not nearly as interesting or polished feeling as "Snakebit," "Pen" still has well-written dialogue, interesting characters, and a decent amount of felt truth to it. All in all, it would make for a decent night of theatre, though nothing to write home about.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews