A moving dissection of sadness in Abaire's 'Rabbit Hole'

The greatest sorrow is wordless. And it’s the suppressed pain that pulsates beneath the words and in the silences between the characters that lies at the heart and soul of David Lindsay-Abaire’s wrenching and remarkable, 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Rabbit Hole,” currently being given an endearing and riveting production by the North Fork Community Theatre in Mattituck.

Directed sensitively, intelligently and fluidly by Michael Manuelian, this tale of the debilitating effects upon and within a family following the death of a 4-year-old boy is a masterpiece of restrained power. In the hands of less sensitive actors and directors, “Rabbit Hole” could emerge as at least strident or at most melodramatic. It’s neither of these in the excellent and true-to-the-playwright’s-intent production in Mattituck. Rather than a grim, difficult-to-witness exercise, it’s a real and ultimately uplifting evening, leavened by humor and shot through with the loveliness that comes from truth and emotional honesty.

What unfolds, with a brilliant balance of wit and poetry, is a very real, very absorbing unfolding of human interplay, understated on the surface but boiling beneath it. It takes acting that can deliver simultaneous and sometimes conflicting emotional levels, that has plunged into the secrecy of character to make this real. And the players in Mattituck do this, with unerring concentration and stirring realization.

What seems in the first 10 minutes of the play to be happy-go-lucky, very funny comedy gradually, almost subliminally, reveals itself as cover banter. Becca and Izzy, two sisters with diverging agendas, are in the conventional kitchen of Becca’s conventional home somewhere in 2006 Long Island. Izzy obviously is used to appearing center stage, as she relates a bar fight to her sister, who is folding clothes to give away to a charity.

Slowly, it becomes apparent that these clothes belonged to Becca’s recently killed child, and the comedy is the playwright’s device of building up a simple sympathy in the audience with the two women. The poetry and the wit don’t depart with the arrival of Becca’s husband, Howard, and, with him, the forceful arc of the play. Nor does the sympathy for the complex and invigorating characters abate.

Realizing this recondite mixture is a daunting challenge to any actor or director, but the shimmering, tightly directed ensemble the NFCT has assembled rises to the challenge with such subterranean skill, the result seems easy and natural.

High schooler Hans Butler, as Jason, the driver of the car that killed the couple’s son, doesn’t quite elicit the underlying guilt and agony of the role, but his skill and ability to keep up with the dynamic adults bodes well for his future. With time, and some deposits in his emotional bank, he will undoubtedly develop into a sensitive and arresting actor. He’s already on the way.

Laura Jones fills with understanding, if not understatement, the role of the nattering mother who always seems to say the wrong thing. Her interplay with her two daughters, particularly in the second act scene in the dead child’s bedroom, in which she and the boy’s mother tackle the grim task of cleaning out not only its objects but its identity, is quietly heartrending.

Claudine Varriale-Volmers is brightly supercharged as Izzy, the understanding, overly expressive, overreaching sister. She ignites her scenes while at the same time conveying tellingly the crying need for attention that motivates her words and actions. It’s a neat, fully realized, telling, multi-level portrayal.

Kyle Cranston is brilliant in his lining out of the character of Howard, the father who has been torn asunder by the tragedy. His reactions are closer to the surface than those of his wife, and they burst through when circumstances touch them. And yet, he’s a good, caring man who tries desperately to deal with what threatens to overpower him and to bring the sort of healing he himself hasn’t achieved to his wife’s more complex and profound grief. It’s a fine, sensitive and sensible performance.

Patrice Keitt delivers a dazzlingly controlled, subtly shaded performance as Becca, the boy’s mother. An underground maelstrom of anguished bereavement surges within her, but she manages to exist on two levels simultaneously. Ms. Keitt, with gentle power, creates a totally realized person who maintains an ostensibly calm shell that shields an undercurrent of frightful agony. It’s a masterly and many faceted performance.

The set design by Mark Matthews is the most solid, ambitious and fulfilling construction of any this critic, in 20-plus years of reviewing NFCT productions, has witnessed. The play demands a revolve, which was present in its New York production. In Mattituck, ingenious folding and moving changes scenes quickly and smoothly, which keeps the flow of the play constant. And Mr. Matthews’s lighting design is subtle and sensitive and enhancing. The tasteful covering music is supplied by director Michael Manuelian, who is also a composer.

“Rabbit Hole” is a beautiful play, beautifully realized by an exquisite ensemble at the North Fork Community Theatre. Don’t miss it.

“Rabbit Hole” continues at the NFCT’s home in Mattituck on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 and Sunday afternoons at 2 through November 22. The box office number is 298-NFCT, or e-mail pkeitt@gmail.com.