INVOLVING FAMILY DRAMA "LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD" AT TWH

We don’t have much control over the family we are born into. We can hope for a loving and supportive environment, with parents and siblings who nurture and protect. What happens when these people nearest and dearest to us also fail us and the trauma that ensues? What happens when a child has a father who is a drug addict? What further damage occurs when that child, only ten years of age, appeals to his aunt to take him in to her home to raise him, only to be refused? Come meet Mishka Yarovoy’s Ethan and Denise Cormier’s Sarah.

Let TheaterWorks Hartford introduce you to Samuel D. Hunter’s disturbing family drama “Little Bear Ridge Road” until Sunday, November 8. You will soon be enmeshed in their story as the last two members of their family, when Ethen reluctantly returns to his Idaho home, after his father’s death, to sell his house and hopefully get enough money to help himself get on the right path of life. He is a writer who cannot seem to write, with a Master’s degree but no job. He seeks sanctuary with his aunt Sarah and she is no more ready to help him now than when he was ten.

Can they finally make a connection? Can he forgive and forget what happened in the past? Will he be able to put his life on a better keel? Will his meeting with Travis Anderson's James at a gay bar enable Ethan to find the love he so desperately craves? Will his independent and opinionated aunt reveal the secret she is hiding? It is only with the appearance and explanation of Janelle Anne Robinson’s Paulette that a final resolution and truths are revealed. Rob Ruggiero directs this involving family drama with sensitivity and compassion, a play he calls “a really great story.”

For tickets ($20-80 ), call TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at twhartford.org. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

For Sarah and Ethan, their lives are like the Reality TV shows they are addicted to watching, with each scene bizarre and unbelievable, yet a science fiction story about aliens that appeals to their senses.