Days to Come

SCRAPING BY Raynor, center, bleeds for the cause.

Photo: Tim Knight

Hellman’s 1936 play views the labor conflicts of its day through the struggle of the Rodman family, conflicted owners of a failing brush factory in small-town Ohio. While the play was a quick flop in its Broadway debut, to a modern, union-sympathetic audience, its morality is uncomplicated and its characters—the wealthy woman looking for escape, the mafioso strikebreakers—somewhat programmatic.

Yet the Artistic Home’s production is punctuated with magnetically theatrical moments. The second act’s stark, anxious opening is pitch-perfect, quickly restoring the action and interest of the play. There’s also a beautiful silent moment in which Julie (Leavey Ballou) slumps on a couch, her shadow hitting the cushions in such a precise mirror image that she seems to be facing two dark directions at once. Indeed, Francesca Bourgault’s lighting is universally excellent, and the sound design, costumes and sets contribute to a rich picture of the period’s style.

Tim Patrick Miller’s portrayal of pragmatic hero Whalen stands out, as does the hangdog naïveté of Patrick Raynor’s workingman Firth. Generally, though, the stilted, noir dialogue feels rushed rather than savored. Moreover, the play lumbers after its climax, dwelling on the Rodmans’ private, bourgeois struggles until we must agree with the sentiment of the patriarch himself that while this might matter somehow, it doesn’t matter tonight.

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