STAGE WEST: "we are continuous" at Diversionary Theatre

Marti Gobel in "we are continuous."                                                                  Photo by Talon Reed Cooper

            Time-wise, “we are continuous” is ambiguously set in “Now and Here” according to the program distributed at performances at Diversionary Theatre, which is staging Harrison David Rivers’ one-act play. While the script feels very much out of the late 1980s, there’s a timelessness about this taut family drama that examines acceptance (and lack thereof), the resiliency of hope, and the love between partners and between a mother and son.
            That’s a lot of ground to tread in only 80 minutes. But about one-third into the story, when all to that point has seemed happy-happy-joy-joy between a mother (Marti Gobel), her son (Elliot Sagay) and the son’s husband (Eli Wood), the crises and the conflicts of “we are continuous” come to the fore. While the mother, Ora, is day by day coming to terms with her beloved son Simon’s sexuality, her unseen husband is having none of it and has gone so drastic as to search for evidence that Simon’s choices are the result of some prior sexual abuse or impropriety.
            This intolerance and denial leaves Ora and Simon struggling on their own terms to maintain what has been a lifelong loving relationship, and Simon and husband Abe feeling like shunned outsiders.
            When an even more dramatic crisis arrives, the stakes of this play are heightened threefold, as is the threat to the already fragile connection between mother and son.
            Rivers has crafted “we are continuous” as an amalgam of in-the-moment scenes and recurring monologues delivered by Ora, Simon and Abe. Some are expository, designed to move the story along from each character’s individual perspective. Others – and those that are most effective – are reflective and soul-baring. It’s a theatrical strategy that I found a little bumpy. I was far more invested in “we are continuous” when the characters are interacting in whatever combination than was I in monologues that can come off as stagey.
            Regardless of the play’s structure, Diversionary’s production is enhanced by the fierce and sympathetic presence of Gobel as Ora and, complementing her, Sagay as Simon. The “we” in “we are continuous” has to be mother and son, who no matter what will share a devotion that rises above.
            Meanwhile with nuance and sincerity, Wood enables the Abe character to become more than an understanding lover-turned-husband.
            Director Kian Kline-Chilton, in making his Diversionary debut, has been in conversation with playwright Rivers and as such demonstrates his comprehension of the arc of “we are continuous” and its emotional flash points, which though we may suspect are coming nonetheless arrive with suddenness and impact.
            It was Rivers, a friend and collaborator of Diversionary Artistic Director Sherri Eden Barber, who first recommended that position to her after the departure of Matt Morrow from the helm of the University Heights company. So it makes sense that Rivers’ “we are continuous,” which premiered in 2022 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, would be among the first productions of Barber’s stewardship. Even with the uneasy melding of monologue and action its presence at Diversionary is auspicious and its love story an important and perceptive one.
            “We are continuous” runs through March 9 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights.