Kudos to director Cate Caplin and an all-around superb Los Angeles-based cast for delivering so powerful a reading of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole, you’d have sworn you were watching a fully-staged production had it not been for the scripts which cast members had in hand in the latest entry in the Interact Theatre Company reading series held monthly at the Studio City branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.

It’s hard to discuss Rabbit Hole without revealing spoilers, so be forewarned, though if you’re familiar with either the 2006 play or its 2010 movie adaptation, you already know Rabbit Hole’s heartrending subject matter, a family’s grief over the loss of a beloved child.

 Still, one of the wonders of Lindsay-Abaire’s remarkable play is how slowly and deliberately he reveals the reason Becca Corbett (Cora Vander Broek) and her younger sister Izzy (Olivia Castanho) are folding a child’s laundry this sunny afternoon.

It’s not until twenty minutes into their conversation that it’s even suggested that the child in question might no longer be alive, and another ten or twenty before we begin to learn the reason for 4-year-old Danny’s death.

What small child has not set off running after a pet dog? What teenager has not driven down a residential street?

But those two entirely unconnected events happened to intersect not so long ago when seventeen-year-old Jason Willette (Patrick Keleher) found himself driving down Becca’s street at no more than a mile or two over the speed limit, and from the moment of impact on, no one’s life will ever be the same.

 Becca’s husband Howie (Keith Powell) deals with his grief by attending group therapy sessions and by watching and rewatching videos of his son’s brief life. Becca copes, or attempts to cope, by making sure that nothing in her home reminds her of Danny. Howie clings to the familiar; Becca just wants to sell the house and move away.

Complicating matters is the letter Becca has recently received from Jason, and the short story he has written and wants to dedicate to Danny, a tale of alternate universes that sets Becca’s mind to wondering.

 Is there an alternate Becca whose life is happy, and could she possibly go down the rabbit hole and become that alternate version of herself?

All of this adds up to what just might be the finest play written so far this century, or at least the one that has moved me the most profoundly, though as he did in 2000’s Kimberly Akimbo, Lindsay-Abaire manages to score almost as many laughs as tears, of which there are many.

And unlike what too often constitutes a “staged reading,” director Caplin and team filled the “stage” of a Studio City library meeting room with three rooms’ worth of furniture and an abundance of props, hardly all that different from what a fully-staged production would have looked like, delivering a reading as fully blocked as an actual production would have been.

 That Caplin and cast managed to put all of this together in a mere five days of rehearsal was downright miraculous as were the performances delivered with such depth and feeling, it was easy to forget the cast was “on book.”

And what an astonishingly fine cast Interact’s Barry Heins and L.A. theater treasure Caplin assembled for Saturday’s reading.

Vander Broek’s Becca’s seemingly brittle exterior gradually broke to reveal oceans of pain hidden deep beneath. Powell’s Howie was a walking timebomb just waiting to detonate.

 Castanho’s Izzy added much needed feistiness and warmth. Roxanne Hart’s wise but worn Nat (Becca and Izzy’s mother) had her own wisdom to impart at just the right moment. And rising star Keleher made for an achingly real Jason wracked with a guilt no teenager should have to carry through life.

Add to this Heins’ emotion-enhancing sound design and assistant to the director/dramaturg Bairton Brown’s day-and-time-establishing projections and audiences were treated to the next best thing to a fully-staged production.

As anyone who visits this website has probably already deduced, I don’t review readings, and going into today’s, I had no intention of breaking that unofficial rule.

Still, when a so-called “reading” reaches the heights this one reached,  an exception must be made. This was a Rabbit Hole to be celebrated and remembered.

Interact Theatre Company, Los Angeles Public Library, Studio City Branch, 12511 Moorpark Street Studio City.
www.InteractLA.org

–Steven Stanley
April 12, 2025
Photos: Cate Caplin, Steven Stanley

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: David Lindsay-Abaire, InterACT Theatre Company, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles Theater Review