Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Depicting fraught homecomings in the return of Clare Barron’s YOU GOT OLDER and the premiere of Jake Brasch’s THE RESERVOIR

• By drediman
• March 1, 2026
• No Comments

Now running Off-Broadway, you’ll also find two plays that depict fraught homecomings of bruised characters who make the difficult decision to return to their childhood home to reset there lives. As always, you can read on below for my further thoughts on these two worthwhile and beautifully acted productions.

YOU GOT OLDER
Cherry Lane Theatre
Through April 12

Down at the revitalized Cherry Lane Theatre, you’ll find a very fine staging of Clare Barron’s You Got Older (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). I actually saw Page 73’s original Off-Broadway production 12 years ago at HERE (located just a few blocks from the Cherry Lane), and still recall being bewitched by Barron’s painfully human play about Mae, a woman who goes back to her childhood home in the Pacific Northwest to care for her sick father who has been diagnosed with cancer and — having simultaneously lost her job and her boyfriend — deal with demons of her own. The current revival is led by Alia Shawkat (the seminal Arrested Development series) as Mae and the great Peter Friedman (Job, Ragtime) as her father, both of whom are giving exceptionally layered and lived-in performances that achingly indicate rich and complex inner lives. Suffice today, this play about family vis-à-vis one’s libido (represented by a menacing cowboy, played with masculine allure by Paul Cooper, who haunts Mae’s dreams and even some waking moments) has stood the test of time — Barron’s dialogue continues to be a breath of fresh air and surprising at every turn, often finding unexpected hilarity and poignancy in awkward situations. Veteran director Anne Kauffman returns to helm the play, giving it a pitch-perfect staging that gives the moorless characters the space to tentatively find their voice and sense of direction. The production also features wonderfully idiosyncratic performances by Nina White, Nadine Malouf, and Misha Brooks as Mae’s three quirky siblings — their familial interactions are priceless — and a disarming turn by Caleb Joshua Eberhardt as Mae’s potential love interest.

THE RESERVOIR
Atlantic Theater Company
Through March 22

Also on the boards is Jake Brasch‘s The Reservoir (RECOMMENDED), a co-production between Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The production is headlined by Noah Galvin as a gay alcoholic NYU student who returns to his hometown (Denver) to sober up, in the process meaningfully re-connecting with his mentally declining grandparents, who are portrayed by the stellar and hugely accompished veteran acting quartet of Caroline Aaron, Peter Maloney, Mary Beth Peil, and Chip Zien. Galvin carries the show with an energetic and hugely charismatic performance that engages from the get go. Indeed, it’s a terrifically empathetic turn that gets the audience immediately cheering for Josh’s successful climb out of the depths of despair of addiction. Playing Josh’s exasperated mother — who has had to deal with the disappointment of Josh’s relapses time and time again — Heidi Armbruster gives a nicely-calibrated performance that speaks volumes without being given much dialogue to work with. But perhaps best of all is the hovering grandparents team of Aaron, Maloney, Peil, and Zien, each incisive and distinctive character actors who have here brought their A-game to the table. Witnessing the late-stage blossoming of their relationship with their grandson Josh is immensely heart-warming and one of the chief pleasures of the emotionally generous play. Particularly potent are the parallels the playwright draws between Josh’s memory lapses as a heavy alcoholic — and subsequent recovery efforts — and the mental deterioration that begins weighing on his grandparents. Although arguably overlong at over two hours, there’s nonetheless something appealingly traditional and accessible about Brasch‘s writing and characters (the same can be said of Shelley Butler’s steady staging). It was a pleasure spending time in their company.