Weddings, anniversaries, holidays: the family reunion is a dramatic gift that keeps on giving on both screen and stage. Crystal Finn’s new play, “Find Me Here,” at the Wild Project, falls into a subcategory of the funeral subgenre: the unsealing of a will. In this case, a patriarch’s dying will is uncovered by his three daughters and their families. Truths and conflicts emerge cautiously, almost hesitantly, because Finn is less interested in confrontation than in gentle nudges and shoves.
Unfortunately, “Find Me Here,” the third and final installment of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2024, isn’t willing to commit to any specifics. The cast, however, which includes Constance Shulman, Miriam Silverman and Frank Wood, is so good that the production feels like the theatrical equivalent of handing the keys to a budget sedan to a Formula One driver. The actors are skilled, but the vehicle can only do so much.
The story revolves around sisters Nancy (Lizbeth Mackay), Dee-Dee (Shulman), and Deborah (Kathleen Tolan), whose ages range from 60 to 70. Deborah is the eldest and has spent the last 30 years on an island, where she has followed a guru. Tolan gives her the blissful look of someone who can see a light invisible to others, which contrasts nicely with the sour Dee-Dee and the stressed-out Nancy.
The most important revelation in the will is that Deborah is left with nothing, a result she shrugs off. When Nancy tells Deborah that their father loved her, Dee-Dee says, “Well, that's… we don't know… she loved him, Deborah.”
