Joshua Harmon’s haunting memory play, We Had a World, doesn’t follow any of the “rules” of playwriting or memory plays for that matter, thank the theatre gods. He’s more concerned with the nuances and idiosyncrasies of his authentic characters and the complexities of familial relationships—specifically that of his mother and grandmother.
Directed in a swift yet respectful manner by Trip Cullman, this deeply personal, 3-character, non-linear work centers on Joshua (Andrew Barth Feldman) and his strong bond with his adoring yet enigmatic grandmother, Renee (Joanna Gleason), as well as both Joshua and Renee’s respective, rather stormy, relationships with his mother and her daughter, Ellen (Jeanine Serralles).
Joshua, whose deliberately haphazard arc spans from age 5 to 30something, wants to share the details of the good times he had with Renee, first, before the audience is privy to the real family drama—much to Ellen’s annoyance.
Renee was the kind of grandmother who opened up a new world for Joshua, in his beloved New York City, taking him to many movies (Dances with Wolves, Secrets and Lies) an exhibit called “Pubic Hair on Soap,” a Mapplethorpe retrospective—most in his adolescence and pre-adolescence—all of which he appreciated. But what made the biggest impression was attending the Broadway revival of Medea starring Diana Rigg– a life-altering experience for 10-year-old Joshua. The moment he knew his calling. All thanks to his grandmother.
Early in the play, Renee appears to be an Auntie Mame-type, but we soon figure out that she’s a lot more paradoxical than that (apologies to Rosalind Russell—the ONLY Auntie Mame with nuance). Renee is an alcoholic with a mean streak, although she never drinks around Joshua–until one day she shows up at a school play intoxicated. This signals the beginning of the end (many ends actually) for Ellen’s tolerance of her mother, and her deciding to reveal family secrets to Joshua.
The production never dwells too much on the traumatic events but never trivializes them either. And as someone who grew up with a parent who had a drinking problem, I truly appreciated the humor. Too often works that deal with alcoholism tend to be uber-serious and didactic.
This exquisite, sometimes painfully autobiographical play dances back and forth through years but, also, sometimes stops to question moments, reactions, motivations. It’s a hilarious, searing piece of dramatic therapy, but it’s also a search for some kind of truth about who his grandmother was was and the why she and his mother were at odds for most of his life. Late in the play, Joshua muses about women ‘who should not have been mothers’ but how they, ‘can make very compelling grandmothers.’
Harmon is responsible for my favorite play of last year, Prayer for the French Republic, and here crafts an endearing yet honest tribute to the women who shaped the man and artist he is today.
In a beautiful moment, Joshua recalls how his grandparents, now almost 90, made dinner—his favorite Krau Pretzel–for him and his boyfriend, stopping to appreciating the thoughtfulness and unconditional acceptance and realizing how rare it is.
Harmon and Cullman have cast a trio of dynamic actors that captivate. Feldman truly commands the small Manhattan Theater Club’s basement space at City Center. He is as believable as a pre-adolescent as he is a married 30-year-old and never misses a beat. Serralles must handle many mood shifts, often mid-sentence, and does so with a balance of grace and ferocity. And the great Gleason, who won a Tony for Best Actress in the original cast of Into the Woods in 1988, is simply astonishing to watch, never concerned with audience sympathy—she fully embodies this amazing, complicated wonder of a woman.
While this is a sublimely intimate play I kept wondering what it might be if the peripheral characters were further developed for a more epic look at this fascinating family, especially since Harmon’s work here is about more than just a grandson’s homage to his heroine. It’s about a dying culture that no longer nurtures artists and a world on the brink of destruction–some heady themes. Come on, Joshua, pen us Prayer for the American Republic!
We Had a World plays through April 27, 2025, at NY City Center Stage II, 131 West 55th Street
Tickets are on sale at www.nycitycenter.org
