Questions that pose more questions which in turn prompt more. Old wounds are pried open in the classic Miller tradition. Ruth, who has found an angry and uneasy solace in her own faith, would rather the past stay buried with her husband. But the facts Gerry begins unearthing seem increasingly at odds with Ruth's blithe explanations and recollections. Ruth informs Gerry during one heated exchange.
Facts are troublesome little gremlins best painted over or locked away in desk drawers.
It is the contents of one such drawer of the father's life that sends us into the ever-deepening mystery of the play. Omata distributes clues expertly in classic whodunit fashion, each new clue building upon the last, none too obvious, none insignificant as we learn the cause and the consequences of the family patriarch's disturbingly exhilarating life-changing epiphany. Omata demonstrates shimmers of brilliance in the shifting dynamics of his four characters. Each member of this fine cast dances with nary a misstep under Darrell Kunitomi's compact and fluid direction to Omata's seamless choreography of ever-changing familial alliances and betrayals. Playwright Omata, a suicide last year at 29, may have solved his own mystery.