Theater Review—

‘Subject Was Roses’ Is Well Worth

A Trip To Sherman

By Julie Stern

SHERMAN — Almost fifty years ago, The Subject Was Roses exploded into a breakout year for an unknown young actor named Martin Sheen, as well as the playwright, Frank D. Gilroy, when it garnered a host of awards including Tonys for Best Play and Best Featured Actor (Jack Albertson) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1964. Like the works of Arthur Miller, and Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, to which it has been compared, it is a realistic drama of family dynamics, and the way that unresolved bitterness between the parents impacts the son.

And like the works by those two giants of the American theater, The Subject of Roses stands the test of time. Not a dated period piece, it grabs you up from its first moments, and holds you riveted until the end. Unlike the others, which are laced with humor as well as sadness, Roses is not a tragedy, but rather a deeply moving observation of the complexities of life and human love.

Set in a middle class Bronx household, the play’s nine scenes span a weekend in May 1946, as John and Nettie Cleary celebrate the safe return of their only son, Timmy, finally discharged from the Army after two and a half years of infantry combat in Europe. Timmy still dresses in his uniform because he has outgrown the clothes he left behind, even as the boy his parents remember, has come back a man.

As anyone who has ever been a parent or a child probably knows, when a young adult returns home — whether it is from War, or simply a freshman year at college — it entails a period of adjustment. The parents are lavish in their desire to surround him with his “favorite things” which he may barely remember. The son is eager to display his newfound adult abilities, whether these be an increased thoughtfulness and sensitivity, or the ability to drink his father under the table. 

Yet the façade of unalloyed joy starts to crack under the pressure of long nurtured resentments. In this play both John and Nettie are truly delighted and grateful to have Timmy back, but they are each using their relationship with him to ignore or exclude the other, the idea being,  I can focus on you and thus am excused from having to deal with him or her.

And two years in the Army really have made a man out of Timmy, in that he has become more perceptive and questioning. As a teenager he hated listening to his parents’ fighting and his father’s drunken tirades, and so took refuge in forging an alliance with his mother, becoming in John’s eyes, a “mama’s boy.” 

In the course of his homecoming weekend, he is able to see with new understanding, the limitations of each of these deeply flawed individuals, and the reasons behind their inability to communicate with one another, except through anger.

All of this is beautifully brought to life on the Sherman stage by first time director Tom Libonate, who obtains terrific performances from his actors. Newtown’s Matt McQuail is marvelous as the blustering John Cleary, lurching about the room in his billowing trench coat, mixing the Irish charm and bonhomie of successful salesman in his public persona, with the withering scorn and frustration of a man whose own impoverished childhood left him  severely stunted in the realm of personal relationships.

M.J. Hartell, another veteran of local stages, gives a wonderful performance as the tightly wound Nettie, whose surface of sweetness and calm is broken by eruptions of  indignation, panic and silent rage.

Finally, as with Martin Sheen, WestConn graduate Matthew Bagley is totally convincing as the modest and self-effacing Timmy, who is torn between his desire to express his love for both his parents, and his growing need to establish an authentic identity of his own.

The soft-shoe routines that the drunken father and son perform after a night on the town are worth the price of admission alone, but they are only one small piece in this excellent production. The Subject Was Roses is definitely worth a trip up to Sherman, especially in this holiday season of family gatherings.

(Performances continue weekends until April 21. See the Enjoy Calendar, in print and online, for curtain, ticket and other details.)