Pitch-perfect casting makes a world of difference in the return engagement of Daniel Talbott’s haunting memory play What Happened When, an Echo Theater Company midweek gem.

 When a teenager has grown up in a house of hell like Jimi’s (Ian Bamberg), all a boy can do on a cold winter night is huddle in bed with older siblings Sam (Libby Woodridge) and Will (Joey Stromberg) as Will imagines a future that is sadly beyond Jimi’s wildest dreams, one in which he’s studying art or marine biology at a UC, his sister’s off teaching in another country, his brother’s making good money working construction, and the brothers have season tickets to the local baseball and basketball teams.

Reality is, unfortunately, nothing like the fantasy Will has conjured.

Sam works extra shifts in hopes of moving into a place of her own, Will screws around on his girlfriend, and Jimi stays home from school playing sick and imagining their parents’ fiery car accident death.

 Unfolding in a single bedroom over the course of six years, What Happened When requires an alert ear to fully comprehend and appreciate its complexities. Attention should be paid to brief mentions of Sam’s plans to head off to the waterfall with friends or Will’s girlfriend’s belief in ghosts, more specifically that “when you love somebody so much, it’s not possible for them to leave. They sit with you till you’re ready for them to leave,” seemingly throw-away lines that will pay off to gut-punching effect.

Miscasting marred What Happened When’s Echo Theater debut last April in more ways than one.

Thankfully, its return engagement has ace director Chris Fields working with three of the finest young actors in town.

Stromberg ignites the stage as golden boy Will, screwing his way through life but never less than human, and just about the best and most understanding older brother a troubled teen could possibly wish for.

 Woodridge’s tough-edged but tender Sam is another winner, starting out quiet as a mouse, the better not to attract attention in a home where invisibility pays off, before going on to reveal the assertive older sister she is capable of being.

 Last but not least, Bamberg (so memorable in Echo’s Backyard) is both heartbreakingly vulnerable and utterly real as the victim of what no child should ever have to endure, and perhaps the only one among the three siblings with a promising future ahead of him.

As it did in April, What Happened When scores a perfect 10 with its stunning production design.

“You are there” seating turns audience members into virtual voyeurs to scenic designer Amanda Knehans’ inches-away bedroom set, one whose Jackson Pollock-esque walls take on a life of their own thanks to Rose Malone’s stunning lighting design as sound designer John Zalewski underscores the action with ominous rumbles and mood-setting music. Elio Oliver’s costumes are first-rate as well.

What Happened When is produced by Fields and Talbott. Venice Young is production stage manager.

Following its flawed West Coast Premiere last April, I wrote that at the very least “Daniel Talbott’s latest is sixty-five minutes of theater you’ll be talking about long after its fade to black,” words that still true three months later only this time Echo Theater Company gets everything right.

The Echo Theater Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.EchoTheaterCompany.com

–Steven Stanley
July 31, 2018
Photos: Darrett Sanders

Tags: Daniel Talbott, Echo Theater Company, Los Angeles Theater Review