By Gretchen C. Van Benthuysen
LONG BRANCH —If you believe everything happens for a reason, you’ll feel right at home in the audience of “Struck,” advertised as “a serious comedy about a possibly cosmic event” currently receiving its world premiere at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
Written by Sandy Rustin of Maplewood, who’s also an actress and co-founder of Midtown Direct Rep (a professional, ensemble-based theater company in residence at the South Orange Performing Arts Center), the unpredictable, thought-provoking work is based on a series of real-life events she experienced.
“Struck” is about Vera (Susan Maris), a New York City actress, who is hit by a cyclist at First Avenue and 14th Street and seriously bruised. Really. The makeup solicits painful sounding “Oohs” from the audience when they see the bruises.
In real life, Rustin also was injured by a cyclist in the East Village which came soon after she was struck twice while driving – first by a garbage truck and second by a negligent driver.
The playwright and Vera both believe there a reason these incidents happened — someone, something must be trying to tell them something. Right?
Also, both are Jewish and have been affected by news of restitution for art stolen by the Nazis, reunification of families separated during the Holocaust, and a new respect for cultural and religious traditions they kind of neglected as adults.
For any family scattered far from home due to war, politics, famine or flood, Rustin’s story should resonate. And, true to the human spirit — particularly, the Jewish spirit — much humor will be found and used as a salve for the pain. “Struck” is liked that — an upbeat work filled with laughter before and after a painful, scary, creepy incident.
Vera is married to Nate (Adam Bradley), a divorce lawyer and rational one in the marriage, and they live in an apartment building down the hall from Vicky (Jenny Bacon), a twice-divorced, dippy middle-aged woman from Texas with a foul mouth and hippy wardrobe. The play takes place in 2013.
Matthew Shepard is Bertrand, a long-lost French cousin of Vera’s, and Ben Puvalowski plays James, the inattentive cyclist. (Puvalowski, a graduate of the Ranney School in Tinton Falls, is making his NJRep debut as he completes his education at New York University. Not a bad summer job.)
The 90-minute play with no intermission moves briskly under the able direction of Don Stephenson. So much so the audience is caught off guard — gasps all around — when everything suddenly goes very wrong. (Sorry to sound cryptic, but to reveal more would spoil the story.)
Before that, though, Vera feels sorry for the “kid” — an art history major at, of all places, New York University — that caused the accident and gives him her address so he can bring her a gift. Vicky thinks she’s crazy to invite the (expletives deleted) “bike murderer” stranger into her home. Vera checks his Facebook page and decides it’s OK, although he doesn’t have a lot of friends. But when James arrives and gives Vera not only flowers but a year’s subscription to Ancestry.com, Vicky is immediately won over. “That was strange and awesome,” she exclaims.
Bacon is marvelous in her hippy-dippy role. She knows Vera is pregnant before Vera does. She prefers alternative medicine and falls in love with Bertrand before she meets him or hears his delightful French accent.
Set by Jessica Park, lighting by Jill Nagle, costumes by Patricia E. Doherty and sound by Merek Royce Press serve the production well.
WHO: New Jersey Repertory Company
WHAT: “Struck”
WHERE: 179 Broadway, Long Branch
WHEN: Thursdays through Sundays through July 31
TICKETS: $45, call 732-229-3166 or visit at www.njrep.org.
