NJ Rep presents Israel Horovitz’s gritty drama ‘Sins of the Mother’

ANDREA PHOX

From left, John Stout Adams, Rudy Galvan, Edward James Hyland and Michael Bakkensen co-star in “Sins of the Mother” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.

Douggie has been back in his hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts, for just a few days as the late Israel Horovitz’s gritty, testosterone-filled drama “Sins of the Mother” — currently being presented at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, with direction by Evan Bergman — begins. “Just all of a sudden, I missed Gloucester, I guess,” he says.

It’s hard to see why. His parents are both dead, all his other relatives have moved away, and Gloucester, as depicted in this play, is the kind of place you escape from, not the kind of place you return to. Douggie (played by Rudy Galvan) is looking for a job at the fish processing plant, which he heard might be hiring soon, but old-timer Bobbie (Edward James Hyland) disabuses him of that notion.

ANDREA PHOX

Rudy Galvan, left, and Edward James Hyland in “Sins of the Mother.”

“There hasn’t been a job open here in maybe three years,” says Bobbie. “Maybe four. Waterfront’s dead.”

Bobbie, a Vietnam War veteran, is at the plant on his weekly visit to get his card signed. You have to prove that you are looking for work but that there is no work to be found, in order to receive unemployment checks. So you get your card signed, once a week, and go back home.

Set designer Jessica Parks cleverly suggests the dockside setting with walls made of netting. We also hear some foghorns and seagulls. At first just Douggie and Bobbie are here, waiting for the plant’s office to open. But soon they are joined by two other men who are also looking to get their cards signed: Dubbah (John Stout Adams) and Frankie (Michael Bakkensen). They are younger than Bobbie — somewhere around Douggie’s age — but they know Bobbie well.

As they wait, and talk, a lot of stuff comes out. There is a ton of tragic history in this town, and much of it involves — as you might have guessed, from the play’s title — Douggie’s mother. Also Frankie’s father, and Bobbie. Old grievances re-surface, tempers flare, and Act 1 ends with a shock.

Act 2 jumps into the future and deals with the aftermath of what happened at the end of Act 1, with Frankie’s hated identical twin brother Philly (also played by Bakkensen), unseen in Act 1, not just joining the action, but dominating. There is a lot more conversation, and Act 2 ends with a different kind of shock.

ANDREW PHOX

John Stout Adams, left, and Michael Bakkensen in “Sins of the Mother.”

As the men talk, the tone of the stories get darker and darker. But there is also plenty of casual jawing (in heavy Massachusetts accents) and some hard-boiled philosophizing (“She was my mother. You only get one of those, and she was what I got,” says Douggie; “The past is the past and you gotta keep moving forward,” says Philly). And in a kind of running joke, the characters make valiant attempts to keep the members of their extended families, and the town’s many other clans, straight. For example:

Bobbie: You ever see your uncle? You were really close with him.
Philly: Which one?
Bobbie: Uncle Jimmy.
Philly: I got three Uncle Jimmys. My mother’s brother Jimmy. My fucking father’s dipshit brother Jimmy. And my mother’s cousin Jimmy … who we always call Uncle, on account of he was their age.

There are so many exchanges like this that it starts to seem absurd. But humor is pretty low on Horovitz’s list of priorities. He mainly wants to paint a portrait of men hardened by life, enured to violence, and haunted by the same things that have been haunting their families forever. They may try to escape, but they only get pulled deeper in.

They are not macho clichés: two are vegetarians, one is a big Oprah fan, and one still pines for a woman he lost many years ago. But they are capable of doing horrendous things. And maybe worst of all, they accept it all with a shrug.

Horovitz doesn’t make them more articulate than you would expect a bunch of men like this to be. But there is still a blunt power to his writing. “When I croak, throw me in the harbor, let the crabs do their personal thing,” says Bobbie. “Feed off my miserable flesh. That’s the only party I want.”

New Jersey Repertory in Long Branch will present “Sins of the Mother” through May 3. Visit njrep.org.

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