David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer winning drama RABBIT HOLE makes its local debut this weekend in a staging by the Middletown-based Monmouth Players.
As the area’s longest continuously operating theatrical troupe — established over 60 years ago, in a time long before the arrival of professional companies like Two River Theater — the Monmouth Players made their mark as purveyors of comic specialties from the likes of Neil Simon, or lightweight mysteries from the typewriter of Agatha Christie and that ilk.
But while the Navesink-based company hasn’t exactly knocked the Doc (refer to their 2013-2014 “Season of Simon”), the players, under the stewardship of husband-wife team Paul and Lori Renick, continue to rethink the boundaries of what a small-town community playhouse can do.
In the current season — their second full slate of shows presented at the reborn and rebranded Navesink Arts Center — the auditorium of the former Navesink Library has been playing host to an eclectic selection of classic farces, edgy comedies and challenging dramas; both in fully staged productions and an all-new series of “black box” endeavors.
Beginning this Saturday, February 7, the Monmouth Players venture back into dramatic territory, with the area’s first look at a celebrated recent study of grief, loss, and the wildly different ways in which various people deal with those things — Rabbit Hole, a play that earned the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its author David Lindsay-Abaire, and a 2006 Tony Award for its lead actress Cynthia (Sex and the City) Nixon.
Also adapted into a 2010 film starring Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole presents a married couple in the aftermath of having lost their only child in a traffic accident. While husband Howie seeks both to honor their late son’s memory and have another child, wife Becca seems to want to erase the memory of the dead child altogether — even as she begins a series of meetings with the teenager who caused the boy’s death.
It’s actually not without its flashes of humor, despite the grim synopsis, and it retains trace evidence of the playwright whose other credits actually include Shrek: the Musical (and the animated film Rise of the Guardians). Performances of Rabbit Hole are February 7, 14, 21, 27 and 28 at 8:15 pm, as well as February 8, 15 and 22 at 2 pm. Required reservations ($17) can be made by calling (732)291-2911 — and the Players’ famous spread of homemade desserts will be present at all performances inside the beautifully renovated Arts Center to sweeten the deal. Check the company’s Facebook page for updates on future events at the former Navesink Library, including a March staging of Godspell and April’s production of the Noel Coward comedy Present Laughter.
