It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while a play is not so much a play as it is an audition for a Netflix or HBO series. The TV company could be NBC or CBS if not for the fact that “The Reservoir,” which opened Tuesday at the Atlantic Theater Company, is about alcoholism and Alzheimer’s.
No fewer than three characters in Jake Brasch’s new play have Alzheimer’s and, as is to be expected, they are all old people. More novel is the alcoholic. He’s a young college dropout named Josh, who is played with enormous, beguiling charm by Noah Galvin (“Theater Camp”). Josh started drinking heavily at age 13.
Josh’s mother (Heidi Armbruster) and Josh’s only grandparent who doesn’t have Alzheimer’s (Peter Maloney) quickly establish themselves as minor threats to his having a great time with his alcoholism, which includes downing vanilla extract because Josh is underage and can’t always get his hands on real booze.
Josh’s three other grandparents (Caroline Aaron, Mary Beth Peil, Chip Zien) are absolutely adorable and get laughs by speaking Yiddish and/or four-letter words in a way that only the older set can pull off with such aplomb.
During the course of “The Reservoir,” Josh wakes up from two spectacular benders and he entertains us in a way that’s very much the way people at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings do in the first half of their confessional speeches. There are lots of great jokes and boasts of how much was consumed before the Uh-Oh moment in their life arrived to shatter that joviality.
Elaine Stritch turned this format into a whole evening at the theater. In the first act of “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” she complained with great wit about the tight-ass friends and colleagues who tried to prevent her from drinking. Then in the second act, she congratulated herself for getting sober and doing what those tight-asses begged her to do.
Fortunately, Brasch hasn’t written many scenes where Josh attends AA meetings. Then again, he doesn’t make us feel that Josh is ever in any real danger. Some of this could be blamed on Shelley Butler’s too buoyant direction, which doesn’t always rein in Galvin’s standup-comedy instincts. The actor is a real star who never leaves the stage for the entire two hours and 15 minutes of “The Reservoir.” He’s even there, lying flat on his back, when we first enter the theater. Galvin is more than ready for prime time.
“The Reservoir” is presented by the Ensemble Studio Theatre with the Atlantic Theater Company.
