You must go home again

Going through a childhood home after a parent’s death is always difficult. When there’s a complicated past between siblings, the process has a way of dragging all the skeletons out of the closet.

B Street Theatre tackles this subject with masterful storytelling and a vivid, sensual stage as Buck Busfield directs one of Arthur Miller’s lesser well-known plays, The Price.

It’s been 16 years since Victor (David Pierini) and Walter’s (Brian Dykstra) parents passed away, and now they must come to terms with their pasts—lives that were affected directly by the aftermath of the stock-market crash and the Great Depression. Victor’s unhappy wife, Esther (Elisabeth Nunziato), and an ancient antique salesman, Gregory Solomon (David Silberman), join the fray, and soon, every party’s vested interest makes his or her words and actions suspect.

Thankfully, the cast is small and all more than capable of their roles. The dialogue fits the characters onstage perfectly, most especially with Silberman’s portrayal of the stereotypically Jewish Solomon.

Samantha Reno’s stage takes up an entire wall, creating and using higher set pieces. Both bric-a-brac and treasures litter the stage, from a harp to a pair of dueling foils. The mess it creates is the perfect backdrop for the events of the play.

Anyone who has seen the emotional wreckage this process can inflict will be able to understand the play’s subtleties and feel real, honest sympathy for the characters. People who have not yet gone through this process may also learn a valuable lesson about the importance of family in the long term.