ESCAPE FROM HAPPINESS
The family at the center of George F. Walker’s dark comic farce Escape From Happiness is sick–and entertaining. Headed by a mother who maintains only the most tenuous connection to reality, the family consists of three daughters who display a panoply of neuroses and a chronically ill old man who may or may not be their father. When the youngest daughter’s husband is beaten up by local thugs, the family is thrown into a crisis.
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There are lots of wonderful performances by this non-Equity ensemble. Amelia Barrett, who always shone in Cactus Theatre’s hyperrealistic productions, proves herself here to be a powerful, very funny comic actress. Ann James, so marvelous last winter as June Cleaver in As the Beaver, excels in yet another passive-aggressive mom role. And Kris Edlund is delightful as the spunky, tough-minded youngest sister, the only more or less sane character in the bunch.
