Playwright Justin Tanner, author of \u201cPot Mom,\u201d<\/a> \u201cLittle Theatre\u201d<\/a> and \u201cVoice Lessons,\u201d<\/a> is one of the signal voices of L.A.\u2019s wild and free intimate theater scene. He has not only written what might be his most personal play (there\u2019s plenty of competition for that spot), but he\u2019s also performing the work \u2014 solo. <\/p>\n \u201cMy Son the Playwright,\u201d now receiving its world premiere in a Rogue Machine production at the Matrix Theatre\u2019s cozy Henry Murray Stage, is divided into two acts. The first presents the father\u2019s side of the tumultuous relationship; the second offers the son\u2019s point of view. (An intermission, in which the son\u2019s apartment is created out of the father\u2019s, separates the two.) <\/p>\n Tanner plunges into these ostentatiously autobiographical roles, heedlessly, hectically and without a psychiatric net. He not only imagines competing sides of a traumatic family story but also inhabits the aggrieved minds of both Douglas, the out-of-touch father, and James, his out-of-control playwright son. He knows these characters well \u2014 perhaps too well for the sake of the play. <\/p>\n The play, directed by Lisa James, one of Tanner\u2019s trusted collaborators, is remarkably fair to both characters without at all mitigating their flamboyant shortcomings. No one is condemned. No one is exculpated. The French proverb \u201cto understand all is to forgive all\u201d might be overstating matters. But \u201cMy Son the Playwright\u201d demonstrates the value of a writing practice that finds empathy for even the most impossible of characters.<\/p>\n In his play, Tanner dives into two autobiographical roles: Douglas, the out-of-touch father, and James, his out-of-control playwright son.<\/p>\n (Jeff Lorch)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n It takes courage to write such a play and maybe a touch of madness to perform it in such an intimate space. There\u2019s no place for Tanner to hide upstairs at the attic-like Henry Murray Stage. Digging into tough subjects such as addiction and domestic abuse, he taps into excruciating feelings that aren\u2019t easy to corral once they\u2019re released. Rage, anguish, grief, inflamed by denial, cry out for anesthetic relief \u2014 gin for dad and pot and sex for his boy. <\/p>\n Distinguished by different hairdos and contrasting body language, Douglas, who can will himself to appear sedate, and James, who\u2019s in a continual manic spiral, have more in common than either would care to admit. Griping to themselves in their apartments at different ends of California, they both seethe with resentment for having been unfairly treated by the other. <\/p>\n Douglas, who serves as James\u2019 business manager, complains that he\u2019s been picking up the pieces of his son\u2019s irresponsible life for too long. He\u2019s saddled with a large bag of receipts that is his job to sort through \u2014 a perfect symbol of the domestic wreckage that\u2019s still in need of a thorough accounting.<\/p>\n James both longs for a family reckoning and does everything in his power to avoid one. He\u2019s expected to make the five-hour drive to see his father, but first he has to get in touch with his dealer to replenish a bag of weed that has mysteriously disappeared. An unexpected phone call from an old hook-up threatens to derail his plans. James, not unlike his alcoholic father, is at the mercy of his compulsions. <\/p>\n Douglas doesn\u2019t understand why his children are partial to their mother, his ex-wife, who was the source of so much instability and terror. But his own toxic contribution to the household chaos \u2014 stemming in part from his inability to accept his attraction to other men \u2014 has made it hard for him to see his role in James\u2019 psychological problems. <\/p>\n The Bible got it wrong. It\u2019s not the sins of the father that will be visited upon the son. It\u2019s the unprocessed trauma that gets passed down from generation to generation. But that\u2019s not all that comes through. Resilience, too, is transmitted, as is a desire to preserve the love that wasn\u2019t destroyed in the family conflagration. <\/p>\n Musically inclined, Douglas and James both spend time at the keyboard, accompanying themselves on songs that give form to their amorphous inner lives. Art and culture are a refuge and a point of connection. <\/p>\n Movie posters decorate James\u2019 disordered apartment. His appreciation of cinema harks back to one of the rare good memories of his father, who once took him to the movies to cheer him up after an episode of perverse cruelty from his mother.<\/p>\n Douglas belittles his son\u2019s erratic career. He also holds a grudge that his own creative interests were never given an opportunity to develop. But it doesn\u2019t take much to detect the pride he has in his son, whose work may not reliably pay the bills but has brought public recognition and a sense of redeeming purpose. <\/p>\n The staging brings us inside both homes, which set and lighting designer Mark Mendelson and prop designer Megan Trapani-Diven forensically bring to life. Neat or squalid, these apartments reflect the compromised lives these men have made for themselves. But the intermission that the set change demands seems like an intrusion in a play that could do without the realistic detail. <\/p>\n Tanner, of course, needs to catch his breath and change his hairstyle. But the material of \u201cMy Son the Playwright\u201d is so raw that I wonder if he might have been able to see Douglas and James more clearly as dramatic characters if he weren\u2019t also acting their roles. Art requires distance, and Tanner is so genuinely in the grip of intense family emotion that this father and son sometimes seem more real than theatrically compelling.<\/p>\n Neither lack for words, as they run through their grievance-filled monologues with a feverish mix of guilt and fury. Tanner\u2019s language vividly captures the warped patterns of their thinking. But \u201cMy Son the Playwright\u201d perhaps needs a little more tranquility for these recollections to make a more thorough transformation into art.<\/p>\n![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/2e8e02d\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2000x1333+0+0\/resize\/320x213!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4c%2Fec%2Fd9d66cde413e8b07aba5699f15c9%2Fjustin-tanner-as-son.jpg)
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