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by Jason Adams
Erik (Richard Jenkins), the patriarch of the Blake family, stands staring out a dingy window into the gray light of the alleyway -- excuse me, the "interior courtyard" -- behind his daughter's unfurnished and water-logged Chinatown apartment. His thoughts are clearly elsewhere, new worries freshly lining his already lined face, as something catches his eye, and then another -- is that snow? It's lovely, in its way, but distressing all the same -- having traveled into the big city for this Housewarming slash Thanksgiving dinner from the wilds of distant Scranton he's got to think about getting everybody home at a decent hour, and a snow-storm would have them trapped here, nary a bed in sight. (Having lugged a Mary figure there as their Housewarming gift the soft Biblical allusions to "no room at the Inn" seem let's say non-accidental.) He brings up this his most recent distress to Richard (Steven Yeun), his daughter's boyfriend, who doesn't see snow at all, instead offering the thesis that someone on an upper floor has just emptied their ashtray.
Snow to ash, and just like that beauty to death, a recurring happening in Stephen Karam's Tony-winning play turned A24's darkly funny and emotionally cataclysmic awards-season contender The Humans, out this week...
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