My overall impression
If Eugene O’Neill’s Long Days Journey Into Night was written and directed in the style of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, you will have Catherine Pelonero’s Another Effing Family Drama, which is reason alone to catch it at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles.
Directed by Dan Berkowitz, Another Effing Family Drama more than tosses a nod to the Absurdist’s – it sticks its tongue straight out at any “kitchen sink” variety family story, be it comedy or drama. Within the first two minutes of the play, Pelonero holds up every known cliché of the family drama genre and strips them of all their power. What we have left is a basic story of an over-achieving daughter June (played by Eva Minemar) returning to her childhood home to confront her mother Eleanor (Ann Ryerson) about her abusive father’s death. These mother-daughter scenes are performed with award-winning depth and sincerity. Which is all the more amazing since they are “visited” and interrupted at random intervals by the Effing Family next door. The Effing Family is an amusing Dadaist concoction of archetypes, stereotypes, and gags all lead by Holly (Monica Martin). The over-controlling June declares herself the protagonist of the play to which Holly more than accepts the role of antagonist with glee.
However, in what becomes an Existential twist at the end, it is Holly and her gang of characters that lead June to find the meaning in the everyday mundane occurrences.
