The Cincinnati Playhouse’s Blake Robison calls Jen Silverman “part of a new generation of very exciting and accomplished playwrights taking over American theater.” Continuing the Playhouse’s serious and overt commitment to new works by women, Robison is presenting the world premiere of Silverman’s new play, All the Roads Home, at the Playhouse. Following previews over the past week, it officially opens on Thursday.
Silverman is a much-in-demand playwright whose scripts are being produced at theaters from coast to coast — Baltimore and Washington, D.C. as well as San Francisco and Costa Mesa, Calif. Her new play The Moors had a limited Off-Broadway engagement in February. This summer, Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre will stage The Roommate, her script that debuted at the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, receiving very positive reviews. Silverman is definitely a hot commodity.
All the Roads Home is about three generations of women in one family. In the 1950s, teenager Madeleine runs away to New York with fantasies of becoming a dancer. In the 1970s, her headstrong daughter Max, a wannabe cowboy, rebels against the same small-town Massachusetts life that drove her mother away. Fast-forward to today and Max’s daughter Nix travels the country as a musician, chasing a dream that might not be her own. Silverman’s play is a coming-of-age story times three, as well as an exploration of the impact of mothers’ choices on their daughters.
In press materials, Silverman admits to coming from “a family of strong-willed and iconoclastic women.” She says she’s interested in conversations “about family and transformations in general, but I think that conversation gets particularly interesting when you consider the parameters women operate under, the space that women were allowed to take up ‘back then’ and the way they resisted restriction (or couldn’t) vs. those same things now.”
Adding another level of intriguing depth to the play, Silverman and director Lee Sunday Evans have purposefully cast actors of differing ethnicity — Rebecca S’manga Frank as Madeleine, Tina Chilip as Max and Libby Winters as Nix — as the three central characters. They play those roles and others across the play’s time segments, joined by Tramell Tillman as various men in their lives.
Robison says Silverman and Evans wanted the casting to broaden the play’s message by underscoring the universality of these women’s situations. “Jen and Lee want audiences to come away with the sense that the play represents all of us,” he says.
Silverman expands on this notion. “The diversity in casting is meant to tell the story that the stories of these three women in one family can reflect a broader, more universal experience of families and the passing of generations.”
In an interview with Playbill, Silverman said, “I think each woman comes up against a moment where they either have to choose to sort of step outside of expectation and possibly destroy a life that has been built up for them, or they have to choose to let go of it and step back into their lives.” Her play examines the impacts of such choices and the resulting unfulfilled dreams that get passed along.
Several of Silverman’s plays are unapologetically feminist, exploring themes of women pushing against limitations. That’s a perspective you’re unlikely to find in a play by a man, and it represents a good reason why more theaters should follow the Playhouse’s lead and seek out new works by women. (In conjunction with All the Roads Home, the Playhouse offers a panel on April 10 at 7 p.m. about American feminist history with emphasis on the play’s three time periods. The event is free, but reservations are necessary: 513-421-3888.)
Robison says he loved Silverman’s play the first time he read it. “I cared about these women and their choices tremendously. While representing three distinct generations, they share common desires to break free from the baggage they carry and individualize themselves apart from the relationships they have with their parents.”
All the Roads Home opens on Thursday and continues through April 23.
CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 5, 2017.
