BY MARTIN DENTON | The family I grew up in was the iconic nuclear kind: a father, a mother, two kids, living in the suburbs in a nice house. Whatever dangers lay beyond the doors of our house were faced together. Inside the doors was always and only safety, security, and certainty.
In “Warm Enough for Swimming,” Maggie Cino introduces us to a family quite the opposite of mine. Eddie and Bridget are grown-up siblings who haven’t seen each other for a while. Eddie returns to the house near Atlantic City where they grew up when their grandmother — their only real relative at this point, and the woman who raised them — passes away. Also present are Alex, Bridget’s boyfriend who may or may not be involved in organized crime, and Viva (short for Genevieve), the privileged young woman whom Eddie has (literally) just married. (Inconveniently, to say the least, their wedding coincided with Grandma’s passing.)
Cino’s ‘quietly explosive’ family study has mythic dimensions
What transpires during this sad, haunting play is less an attempt at reconciliation between brother and sister than a series of dialogues and conversations where moments of understanding painfully push their way to the surface in hopes of, this time, not getting buried again.
The style of the piece is naturalism, I guess, but there’s always something less substantial and more theatrical fomenting here. Time feels off-kilter, for one thing, even though ostensibly the story plays out in real time. And there’s an odd formalism to how Cino has structured the work — especially in how the characters so conveniently appear and disappear from the messy living room that is the play’s only set, and also in the recurring notion of characters trying to make coffee, never successfully — that brings to mind a kind of magic reality circling these people, as if these fleeting chances they have in the confines of this piece of discovering important things about themselves and each other are mystical, even mythic in their dimension.
What resonates most about “Warm Enough for Swimming” — which is directed by Fred Backus and features a terrifically evocative set by Daniel C. Soule and soundscape by Daniel McKleinfeld — are the characters, and the insights we gain into these very different, very troubled individuals. Lindsey Carter stands out as (and because she plays) outsider Viva. The contrast between the over-compensating woman we meet at the beginning, when she encounters her new sister-in-law for the very first time, and the complicated, caring, controlling, insecure woman we get to know as the play rolls on is stunning. Derrick Peterson plays Alex, who is also outside the family but belongs here in South Jersey. Though he has just as much at stake as the others in this story, there’s a weird grounding to his character that makes us more sure of his survival.
As brother and sister, what Cino’s words and the actors David J. Goldberg and Phoebe Silva illuminate is how different their experiences growing up in the same household actually were. Eddie, the elder of the two, knew more about their mother (who died young) and struggled with balancing the need to protect with the need to escape. Bridget, who has never really done anything as an adult other than care for her grandmother, battles aloneness even while having known — in a way Eddie never has — unconditional love. The contrast is fascinating and painful, and really sits at the heart of this play.
I’m a big fan of Maggie Cino’s work, and this is a very different direction for her as a playwright that makes me eager to see what comes next. Meanwhile, this is a quietly explosive family study that is certainly worth your time.
Martin Denton is the founder and curator of Indie Theater Now, a digital library of more than 1,000 new play scripts from the world of indie theater that also houses commentary and features about contemporary American plays and playwrights. “Warm Enough for Swimming” is part of their 2014 FringeNYC Collection, which features 27 of the best new plays from this year’s NY International Fringe Festival. Visit indietheaternow.com/Subscribe/FringeNYC.
THEATER | WARM ENOUGH FOR SWIMMING
Written by Maggie Cino
Directed by Fred Backus
Set by Daniel C. Soule
Soundscape by Daniel McKleinfeld
Runtime: 1hr 40min
A FringeNYC Encore Series Presentation
Sept. 25 & 27 at 9:30 p.m. | Oct. 2 at 8 p.m.
At SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St.
(btw. Varick & Ave. of the Americas)
Tickets: $18
Reservations: 212-352-3101 or fringenyc-encoreseries.com
