STEPHANIE GAMBA
From left, Adam Kaster, Grayson Richmond and Carlos Andrickson co-star in “& Sons,” which is currently being presented at Luna Stage in West Orange.
The three characters of “& Sons,” which is currently having its world premiere at Luna Stage in West Orange, are construction workers. And in interludes of the play, which was written by Jack Angelo Cummings and is directed here by Matt Monaco, they are shown doing their jobs with loud, angry rock music playing. In a fanciful touch, they pound in nails and swing their sledgehammers in time to the beat, as if they were in a music video.
This adds a bit of magic and emotional catharsis to a play about three young men who don’t, frankly, have a lot of either thing in their lives. It also provides a bit of release, in a play that has a lot of tension.
Italian-American brothers Dom (Grayson Richmond) and Anthony (Adam Kaster) and Mexico-born, Paterson-raised co-worker Juan (Carlos Andrickson) spend much of the play fighting with each other and trying to deal with their own demons and limitations. There is plenty of humor along the way, and the ending is not without hope. But the strength of the play is the vivid way in which Cummings depicts the cages these men find themselves frustratingly trapped in.
Most of the scenes take place during lunch breaks from work. As the three eat their burritos or meatball parm sandwiches, and drink their sodas, they joke and horse around, and talk about movies and TV series, and bicker; in rarer moments, they try to get to know each other, or reach out a helping hand. The set, designed by Lucas Pinner, is a realistic construction site, with a ladder, a sawhorse, a porta-potty, cinder blocks and so on.
STEPHANIE GAMBA
Grayson Richmond, left, and Adam Kaster in “& Sons.”
The play starts, though, with a scene at a funeral. Dom and Anthony’s father Bob has died, having suffered a heart attack while working on a flower box as part of one of his construction jobs. Dom — wearing an ill-fitting black suit (it was Bob’s; Dom doesn’t own one himself) — has stepped outside the funeral home, and Juan and Anthony soon join him.
“I didn’t want Dad seein’ me cryin’,” says Dom.
“He’s dead, Dom,” says the glowering Anthony, with his usual bluntness. “He can’t see shit.”
Bob was the founder and head honcho in the New Jersey construction business DiSanti & Sons. He was a a larger-than-life figure, known to everyone in town, and both loved and feared by those closest to him.
“He was good to the people he liked … That’s how I knew he never liked me,” says Dom.
Anthony — who has been in Los Angeles for years, doing construction on movie sets — has come back East, assuming he will now take over the business. It’s his patrimony, he says. A beefy ex-football player, he is confident, and seems to know what he is doing at his job. Dom is a bit gangly and insecure about his skills, and has a goofy sense of humor. Anthony is a natural leader; Dom’s a follower.
So Dom is happy to defer to him. Juan, not so much.
STEPHANIE GAMBA
Carlos Andrickson in “& Sons.”
Juan is just as competent as Anthony, is shorter but more muscular than him, and is also more professionally ambitious. He is going to school part-time, getting a degree in architecture. He has a warm, brotherly relationship with Dom, and Bob was something of a father figure to him. He “taught me all I know,” says Juan.
In other words, that “& Sons” applies to him, too, to some extent.
But — especially with Anthony making some derogatory, not-so-subtly racist comments about Juan — the two butt heads. As the play goes on, Anthony makes some questionable business choices for the company, and also starts to prove unreliable, disappearing at times for mysterious reasons.
Dom, when he’s not moping, concentrates on fetching lunch for everybody, and trying to keep them happy. But Anthony’s behavior becomes even more erratic, and things eventually reach a breaking point.
Cummings has said that the play was inspired by his own experiences working in construction in Essex County, and by men he has known — especially “younger men who experience a failure to launch,” he said. Indeed, “& Sons” feels very true to life, and I think most people will find something to relate to, in it.
Luna Stage in West Orange will present “& Sons” through May 10. Visit lunastage.org.
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