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A lot of energy is spent setting up an explo sive situation in the family drama “Blood From a Stone.” But despite the efforts of a strong cast led by Ethan Hawke — giving his best performance in years — this New Group production never really detonates.
Hawke plays Travis, a pill-popping former Marine now looking for a purpose in life. Before embarking on a road trip, he visits his parents’ shabby Connecticut house and gets dragged back into their never-ending crises.
Some salty exposition brings us up to speed as Travis folds laundry with his harried mother, Margaret (a heartbreaking Ann Dowd): Travis’ parents hate each other. His brother, Matt, is a deadbeat.
More exposition and profanity follow with the entrance of Travis’ father, Bill (“NYPD Blue” vet Gordon Clapp).
Margaret and Bill leave — rookie playwright Tommy Nohilly introduces his characters one at a time, then moves them aside — and we meet Yvette (Daphne Rubin-Vega), the sexy next-door neighbor and Travis’ old flame. They rekindle their relationship before being busted, in the play’s single funniest scene, by Travis’ sister, Sarah (Natasha Lyonne).
Don’t get too attached to Yvette and Sarah: As appealing and wonderfully acted as they are, nothing will be made of them.
At last, little brother Matt (Thomas Guiry) shows up. The advance word was on target: He’s a loser. More heated talk about dreams and disappointments, this time between
Travis and Matt instead of Travis and his mother, Travis and his father, Travis and his girl, Travis and his sister.
Director Scott Elliott can’t do much with a verbose script that lacks both wit and traction: “August: Osage County” it’s not.
The most interesting aspect of the partly autobiographical “Blood From a Stone” — one Nohilly should explore in future projects — is its unsentimental depiction of working-class Americans.
The play’s characters are stuck in tough jobs while their lives collapse around them, just like the tiles falling from their kitchen’s rotting ceiling — props to Derek McLane’s realistic set. The disintegrating house mirrors not only the disintegrating family, but the fate of many Americans. Hardworking but poor, they can only watch and swear as their world collapses.