What do our parents talk about when we're no longer around? After decades of marriage, what do they want from one another, if anything?
On a small stretch of grass shaped like a revolving planet, in a theater illuminated by stars, Em (Karen Allen, "Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny") and George (Reed Birney, "The Menu"), find they have much to discuss as they await the sight of the blood moon. This is "Lunar Eclipse" by Donald Margulies, now at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., through Oct. 22.
Brooklyn, N.Y., born Margulies, a professor of theater studies at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., is still best known for his 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a Connecticut couple amid a messy divorce, "Dinner with Friends," as well as "Sight Unseen" and "Collected Stories," which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Shakespeare & Company's production in the Elayne P. Bernstein black box theater, directed by James Warwick with set design by John Musall, lighting design by James McNamara, and costume design by Christina Beam, is the world premiere of the play, never having been previously workshopped or produced.
Shadowed by aftermath of the Sackler Family-driven opioid crisis, midwest farmers George and Em struggle toward catharsis, paging through the past, uncovering their personal failings and reaffirming what has been a lifelong love. Birney and Allen play such authentic aging parents, funny, rigid, and emotionally pent-up, they are sure to strike a nerve. Marriage and the moon are endeavors for the patient.
