Seekers of hope for humanity and healing without overthinking are well-served by playwright Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir. Presented by Berkeley Rep in the Peet’s Theatre through Oct. 12, director Mike Donahue combines forces with a spectacular seven-member cast.
Of course, for every actor to provide connection and relatability for audiences, a play must tell a story that’s both universal and personal; timeless and yet of its time. For dramatic depth, it must present believable characters who at some moment find themselves flung by life against a brick wall. Allowed to be shown splattered, broken and bleeding, raw truth is the rubric. In some plays, a beacon of hope emerges from the murk, a shiny force that picks up the wounded and begins to heal their pain, often with humor and attention to life’s tiniest and grandest joys, be they in relationships, nature, tradition, culture or community.
For the most part, The Reservoir hits these touchpoints with the story of NYU dropout Josh, played by a likable Ben Hirschhorn as a desperately addicted, misguided young alcoholic. Raised by a single mother—his Jewish father is largely absent—Josh has been kicked out of a rehab house and finds himself back home in Colorado. Waking from a blackout on the shore of a tree-lined lake, he has no memory of how he acquired a serious laceration on his forearm, and no idea of what to do next other than to find and consume another bottle of booze.
Self-centeredly pushing his mother’s guilt buttons and exploiting her I-want-to-believe-my-son’s lies about sobriety, Josh gains temporary harbor in his childhood home. He decides the way to overcome addiction is by “fixing” not only himself, but his grandparents. Working part-time in a bookstore where he’s so brain-addled he files books by smell, not the alphabet, Josh co-opts his grandparents’ lives.
They present the perfect temptation to an avoidant recovery type like Josh with their Alzheimer’s, dementia, age-related health conditions, fractured family relationships and more. Soon, he’s subjecting himself and them to nefarious, semi-scientific remedies. The gamut includes binging on spinach, Jazzercise classes, brain games reliant on remembering miscellaneous facts and numbers, memorizing text from the Torah and so on.
As Josh’s mom, Patricia—and several additional roles—Brenda Withers is convincing and marvelously differentiated. Pamela Reed provides the play’s greatest performance highlights as grandma Bev, a former electrical engineer unafraid to speak the truth who shines intense light on Josh’s lies with a habit of downing bottles of Wild Turkey or vanilla extract as if they were water drunk by someone dehydrated.
Barbara Kinglsey displays a delicate, adroitly measured pastel counterpart to grandma Bev as Nana. She is submerged in the end stages of Alzheimer’s and “wakes up” sporadically, but poignantly. Her husband, Hank, has actor Michael Cullen simmering under a caregiver’s surface of pain, depression, avoidance and fear, arguably the darkest character.
Lightening the load is Peer Van Wagner’s spirited Shrimpy, Josh’s 83-year-old grandpa, who struggles to prepare for his bar mitzvah 2.0. A late addition to the cast, Jeffrey Omura dexterously juggles the role of bookstore manager Hugo, among other characters.
While some of the finest acting—especially by Reed and Van Wagner—rises to the surface, a bit of magic is lost, despite Afsoon Pajoufar’s visually dynamic mirrored floor and projected backdrop continuing to transfix the eyes and stimulate the imagination. Erika Chong Such’s delightful, witty choreography is also reduced to ripples instead of joyous waves and Josh’s queer identity is used increasingly like a feint.
Even so, Brasch is a young playwright and The Reservoir is a strong indication of a singular voice in contemporary theater and greater works to come. The cast’s handling of humor and heartbreak along with the fine design make it a live production not to miss.
‘The Reservoir,’ through Oct. 12 at Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. 510.647.2949. berkeleyrep.org
