All hell breaks loose when a dating couple and two sets of parents get together for the first time in A Family Business, Matt Chait’s thoroughly entertaining follow-up to Bearings, which won the playwright a 2022-2023 Best Of The Year Scenie.

30ish Julio Gold (Eric Stanton Betts) may be the son of one of Hollywood’s richest and most power-wielding studio heads but it’s Juli’s (pronounced Hooly) own talents and entrepreneurship that have fueled the Gold Studio scion’s business success providing home-grown organic produce to some of L.A.’s classiest restaurants.

Rose Klein (Allie Brown), on the other hand, may come from relatively more modest roots (her dad is a retired business owner and her mom a therapist), but her fledgling catering business has already served up scrumptious homemade eats (like tonight’s bruschetta) for a number of Gold Studio events.

And though Seth and Harmony Klein (Bruce Nozick and Julie Pearl) have graciously opened their five-bedroom home to Max and Elena Gold (Lindsay Merrithew and Michelle Jasso), the first thing the bombastic Hollywood heavyweight does upon arriving is inquire about the square footage of the Kleins’ “very charming little house” (emphasis on “little”), implying that it could probably fit inside one tiny wing of his own megamansion.

Worse still, as far as Seth is concerned, Max refuses point blank to re-park the $300K McLaren 720S he has left dangerously far from the curb of the curvy road on which the Kleins live, because as far as Max is concerned, if anyone should happen to crash into it, it would be no shirt off the movie mogul’s back to replace it with even newer model.

And don’t get Max started on just how big a bigshot he is because as he so immodestly puts it, “I’m Max Gold and I’m fucking invincible!”

Can tonight’s dinner party be anything but a disaster? Can Julio and Rose possibly forge a future together, especially once Rose has revealed plans to let Max finance a “partnership” that will have her catering studio galas in her very own commissary. (As if Max Gold could ever be anything less than the man in charge.)

 All of this adds up to a swiftly moving 90-minutes-in-real-time roller coaster ride of emotions, one whose first act ends quite literally with a bang.

On the slightly minus side, A Family Business does require a certain suspension of disbelief in asking us to buy into one particular character’s shall we say “change of heart,” but performances are so strong under Brian Shnipper’s more than capable direction and A Family Business reaches so satisfying a conclusion that this reviewer allowed himself to cast doubts aside and just go with it.

Merrithew’s egomaniacal, grandstanding Max may command every scene he’s in with the thundering braggadocio of a Louis B. Mayer or Jack Warner or Harry Cohn, but the always terrific Nozick’s increasingly frazzled Seth isn’t about to go down without a fight, not where his daughter (Brown, a radiant, gritty Rose) is concerned.

Jasso’s elegant, endlessly patient Elena and Pearl’s earthy, endlessly caring Harmony are equally fabulous, Betts’ warm-hearted hunk of a Julio reveals the musical theater triple-threat’s dramatic chops, and all four supporting players earn bonus points for their subtle, in-character reactions to Merrithew’s and Nozick’s men-behaving-badly shenanigans.

Last but not least, playwright Chait couldn’t have asked for a classier venue for A Family Business’s World Premiere than the Hudson Mainstage, or a classier design team than the one assembled here.

Stephen Gifford’s warmly burnished living room set, Dianne K. Graebner’s pitch-perfect costume choices, Matt Richter’s accomplished lighting, and Ross Chait’s reality-enhancing sound design (Juli’s cellphone ringtone actually comes from the phone itself!) are as good as it gets in L.A. intimate theater.

A Family Business is produced by playwright Chait and casting director Michael Donovan and presented by The Complex. Erin Treanor is associate producer. Dan Lovato is stage manager.

Amelia Brantley, Tim Martin Gleason, Victoria Hoffman, Daniel Lench, Deborah Ramaglia, and Ray Tezanos are understudies. Click here to read my review of their stellar performances.

Matt Chait’s ingenious, Twilight Zone-esque Bearings was one of last year’s best new plays, and his latest endeavor further reveals the veteran actor/producer-turned-playwright’s talents and versatility.

Not only that, but its mid-November arrival proves a particularly well-timed gift for playgoers in search of something other than yet another How The Grinch Stole A White Christmas Carol. And just how great is that!

The Hudson Mainstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

–Steven Stanley
November 17, 2023
Photos: Doug Haverty

Tags: Hudson Mainstage Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Matt Chait