The Dark Side of That '70s Show
The Sunken Living Room Explores Family Dysfunction in the Me Generation
Review by Mary Damiano

Ah, the '70s - the decade that gave us leisure suits, disco and the perky yellow smiley face. But underneath that insipidness trouble was brewing, as the middle-class family struggled between tradition and modern mores.

Miami playwright David Caudle's play The Sunken Living Room explores the turmoil of one night in the life of a Miami family in November, 1978. The play is getting its world premiere at New Theatre, a co-production with Southern Rep in New Orleans, where the play was originally supposed to open last summer. Sidelined by the hurricanes, The Sunken Living Room is back at home in Miami, all the better for South Florida audiences, who get to be the first of what will surely be many audiences to experience this delicious drama.

The title of David Caudle's play refers to both the once trendy split level floor plan of middle-class America and to a Miami family that lives there, drowning in their own problems, oblivious to 16-year-old Wade's attempt to bail water.

When the play opens, mom Lynette (Pamela Roza) is putting the finishing touches on her make-up and rushing to make it to her bridge club. Wade (John Magaro) is settling down to study, and older brother Chip (Rudy Mungaray) is scamming Mom for money to take his girlfriend Tammy (Arianne Ellison) on a date. Mom gives in, reluctantly, and then rushes off to play cards.

Once mom is out the door, the plot thickens and family dynamics are revealed:Â Wade at first doesn't believe Chip when he says he needs money to buy Tammy an abortion; Wade fears that his brother really wants drug money. Wade leaves Tammy at the house while he runs off on an errand, and things heat up once the sexually innocent Wade and the teasing Tammy are alone together. But when Wade returns all hell breaks loose, plunging the family deeper into turmoil. The unseen characters give insight into the dysfunction: Although the brothers miss their sister Allison, she is all but dead to the parents, for committing the crime of shacking up with her boyfriend. But Chip implies that airline pilot dad is no angel, demanding perfection from his children and carrying on with stewardesses.

A product of the Me Generation, each member of the family is set on doing his or her own thing, everyone else be damned, except for Wade, who is desperate for a connection with his siblings and his parents. Wade's book smarts and neat streak have drawn taunts of being gay from his brother and his classmates, and Caudle intimates that Wade is in denial about his sexual orientation. Magaro plays Wade with sensitivity and just the right amount of shrillness.

As Chip, Mungaray looks a little too Latin and a little too old for the part, but it's a minor point, because his performance is so riveting. At times, in his '70s polyester duds, strutting around like a caged animal in a drug-induced rage, he's a dead ringer for Al Pacino in Scarface.

In her skin-tight, embroidered jeans, skimpy red top and feathered blond hair, Ellison is all 70s teen dream girl come to life. But rather than just play to the stereotype, Ellison infuses Tammy with a vulnerability that shows another side to the teenage sexpot.

The middle-class living room set by Jesse Dreikosen hits the mark - blue crushed velvet-like sofa and armchair, shag carpeting that needs to be raked, wood paneling, console stereo, strange wooden wall art and blah painting that looks like it's straight from a motel fire sale. It also shows restraint, because the 1970s were a tad more garish. There's also a nice bit of irony in the framed portrait of a smiling, happy family presiding over the mayhem.

Caudle has sprinkled his script with 1970's music, like Heart and Joni Mitchell, and references to Anita Bryant, Ruth Buzzi, and Dr. Joyce Brothers to give The Sunken Living Room a period feel, but the family situations presented are just as believable in the present day. And that's where much of the sadness of The Sunken Living Room comes from: that this is the way many families functioned then, and still function today.

The Sunken Living Room runs through May 7 at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables. For more information visit www.new-theatre.org or call 305-443-5909.