The Justice

Alex Davidson '10, left, and Beck Holden '08 squabble in an apparently joyful manner on the set of the Brandeis Players' production of Squabbles. Photo by David Sheppard-Brick/the Justice.

"She should rest in peace!"

It's an unusual comment to hear, regardless of context, but it's one uttered regularly by 73-year-old Abe Dreyfus in the Brandeis Players' production of Marhsall Karp's Squabbles. The phrase is not one that specifically stands out in this comedy, but it's one that describes the sentiment of the play particularly well. The theme of Squabbles needs little further explanation than the one already provided by the title, but to quell your curiosity, Squabbles follows the tormented lives of married 30-something couple Alice and Jerry Sloan, whose irascible single parents, Abe and Mildred, come to live with them in their home in Connecticut. The cast also includes Hector, the Puerto Rican gardener and family friend; Mr. Wasserman, a senile retired pharmacist and neighbor; and Mrs. Fisher, nanny to the Sloans' newborn baby.

Abe lives by the philosophy that squabbling is healthy: "An argument a day keeps the doctor away," he says. His daughter, however, would rather have the peace that Abe seems only willing to grant to the deceased, while Jerry seems too amused by his own eccentricities to pay attention to Abe's contentious behavior. Beck Holden '08 captures the crabbiness and mannerisms most young people would imagine an elderly former New York cab driver to have, but what makes his performance exceptionally impressive is his unwavering commitment to and consistency in playing Abe. Even as Rachael Barr '10, who plays Mildred, was caught off-guard by an on-stage wardrobe malfunction early on, Holden was unruffled and managed to improvise a quip in the midst of the unintended humor. This isn't to say that Barr didn't handle herself well either during the mishap or otherwise. Her physicality stood out and drew laughs throughout the show, but at times, her comedy was not controlled and was overly expressive in moments that could have benefited from subtlety.

The other leads, Rachel Kurnos '08 and Jake Yarmus '10, kept up with the constantly bickering duo and proved to be just as amusing a pair. Though Kurnos' character, Alice, possessed less oddities than the rest of the group, Kurnos managed to endow her with a deep complexity, making Alice a pleasant distraction from the other outlandish characters. According to Yarmus' bio, "He is very much like the character he will be playing this afternoon/evening," which must be true, considering how nuanced and natural was his portrayal of Jerry. In moments when Yarmus burst into giggles, it was unclear as to whether the action was reflex or direction, but it somehow didn't matter-either way, it seemed like something Jerry would do.

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