STAGE REVIEW : SCR’s ‘How to Say Goodbye’ Shuffles Lives, Deals Tragedy

The audience doesn’t have to look further than the set in Stop-Gap’s “How to Say Goodbye” at South Coast Repertory to know that tragedy is ordained for the Staiger family.

Designer Victoria Bryan has filled the background of SCR’s Second Stage with a giant house of cards, painted a deathly bone-white, to serve as both a physical symbol of the Staiger home and a more figurative portent of their coming collapse. Of course, it is too flagrant of a metaphor for Mary Gallagher’s often understated drama, but if director Don R. Laffoon wants foreshadowing, he gets it here.

The stage is set for a crumbling of Casey and Marty Staiger’s very loving, very normal lives when they learn their young son, Conor, has an incurable disease. How the parents react to the crisis becomes the play’s hub. The father, Marty, appears to shed his good-natured irresponsibility and eventually assumes all the family’s reins. Mother Casey, unable to recover from the knowledge that she will lose her only child, retreats.

The cards do fall, but there is a sense that Marty, who has matured during the experience, may be able to resurrect himself, if not the marriage. There are doubts that cling to Casey; perhaps this mother’s love is so vast there can be no recovery.

The play rises, at times, to a height of sensitivity that this type of story, usually robbed of a stronger power by predictability and bathos, often fails to reach. Credit Gallagher’s sure coloring of character and near-poetic dialogue. When dealing with Conor’s dying and the family’s strain, Gallagher allows the audience to experience the feelings that arise.

But “Goodbye” is also a flawed, curiously irresolute work, and the main reason is its form. The action moves uneasily from the present, where Conor’s illness is the focus, to happier scenes from the marriage and past meetings between Casey and two Catholic school friends.

These moments help to clarify all the relationships, especially the important joining of Marty and one of Casey’s friends, a woman who becomes something of a surrogate wife when Casey distances herself. There is shading in these scenes but also a forced exposition, which, unfortunately, detracts somehow from the more crucial bonding of Casey and Marty and the subsequent disintegration of that bond.

One union that is not blurred is between mother and son. As Casey, Corbett Barklie is responsive to the character’s encompassing emotions and resulting heartache--a mother’s love is expressed as a unique and unequaled thing.

Young Justin Morgan holds up his end, playing Conor with more than the standard child-actor posturing. Jon Sidoli’s Marty is also capable, although his resolve toward the play’s close seems a little abrupt. Renata Florin as Philly, the friend who becomes close to Marty, is subtle enough to be convincing, but Cindy Bollman’s unabated hyperactivity as Jana, Casey’s other friend, hurts the portrayal’s authenticity.

‘HOW TO SAY GOODBYE’

A Stop-Gap production at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage of Mary Gallagher’s drama. Directed by Don. R. Laffoon. With Corbett Barklie, Cindy Bollman, Renata Florin, Jon Sidoli and Justin Morgan. Sets and costumes by Victoria Bryan. Lighting by Terri Gens. Plays tonight, Thursday and Friday at 8:30 p.m. at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $15. (714) 957-4033.