Weddings, anniversaries, holidays – the family reunion is a dramatic gift that keeps on giving both on screen and stage. Crystal Finn’s new play, “Find Me Here,” at the Wild Project, falls into a subcategory of the funeral subgenre: the opening of a will. In this case, a patriarch’s last wishes are discovered by his three daughters and their families. Truths and conflicts emerge cautiously, almost tentatively, because Finn is less interested in confrontation than in gentle nudges and nudges.
Unfortunately, “Find Me Here,” the third and final installment of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2024, is also unwilling to commit to any particular point. The cast, however, which includes Constance Shulman, Miriam Silverman and Frank Wood, is so good that the production feels like the theatrical equivalent of handing the keys to a cheap sedan to a Formula 1 driver. The actors are experienced, but the vehicle he can’t do much.
The story revolves around siblings Nancy (Lizbeth Mackay), Dee-Dee (Shulman) and Deborah (Kathleen Tolan), whose ages range from mid-60s to early 70s. Deborah is her eldest and she has spent the last 30 years on an island, where she followed a guru. Tolan gives her the blissful look of someone who can see a light invisible to others, which contrasts nicely with the sour Dee-Dee and stressed-out Nancy.
The most important revelation in the will is that Deborah was left nothing, an outcome of which she shrugs. When Nancy tells Deborah that their father loved her, Dee-Dee says, “Well, that’s… we just don’t know… she loved him, Deborah.”
