Zack

EVA HEINEMANN:

Harold Brighouse’s ZACKis a poor schlemiel that his family runs roughshod over.Mrs. Munning (Melissa Maxwell) and her favorite son, Paul (David Patterson) run what might be considered wedding planners back in Edwardian times. They have been losing business lately to their competitor because their weddings aren’t very jolly. This isn’t surprising as they are cold, greedy grasping people.

Mrs. Munning is in a tizzy as she has Virginia Cavender (Cassia Thompson), a wealthy heiress, staying with them as she recuperates. She wants to make a good impression so she will marry Paul and boost the family business. Mrs. Munning even hires a local girl, Sally (Caroline Festa), to act like their maid.

Zack (Jordan Matthew Brown) bumbles in, who has no pretensions, and always seems to say the wrong things. His family looks down upon him and worries about him as he always ruins everything.

Disaster strikes when their usual wedding waiter, Joe Wrigley (Sean Runnette) hurts himself and can’t do the Abbott (David Lee Huỳnh) wedding. His daughter Martha (Grace Guichard) comes in with a sob story of how they have no money and no food and Zack feels bad for the crying girl and hugs her to comfort her which immediately is seen as an invitation for him to marry Martha.

Because Zack is so kind-hearted and hates for there to be trouble, he allows himself to be bullied into doing things he doesn’t want to do and also to not do things that he would like to do like work the weddings.

How long will his mother and brother reign terror over him? How can Virginia Cavender help him out of the pickle he is in?

The minute Jordan Matthew Brown came lumbering in devouring sandwiches, I myself fell in love with him. He has this adorable puppy dog energy. Melissa Maxwell’s Mrs.Munning and David Patterson’s Paul Munning were so fairy tale evil in their contemptible attitude towards everyone. Cassia Thompson’s Virginia Cavender was this beautiful princess who deserved a prince charming not an ogre like Paul. Sally Teale played a saucy wench recruited from the town to play at being their maid. Sean Runnette’s Joe Wrigley is quite the tall presence towering over everyone and Zack didn’t stand a chance against him and his daughter Grace Guichard who could literally see which way her bread could be buttered. As a Munning she could put on airs just like Mrs Munning and Paul.

I loved this as it had all the makings of a fairy tale. Evil villains bullying the hapless hero, a beautiful princess being bargained about, scheming subplot to further undo the hero.

As in all Mint productions they assemble the finest cast with beautiful sets (Brittany Vasta) and gorgeous costumes (Kindall Almond) lovingly directed by Britt Berke.

MAJOR HAPPY FACE

SARAH KRASNOW:

Zack is a well constructed and gratifying love story. The conventions are of the time but then again, as Eva said, it is fun to see a real villain (the last name Munning sounds a lot like “money”; plus Douglas Rees comes in as Harry Shoebridge, an opportunist incarnate) and I was amazed at a character like Zack as the center of the story.

Where Mrs. Munning and Paul are greedy, stingy, and obsessed with appearances, Zack is generous, gentle, and only able to be himself.

In this production, Zack reads as neurodiverse. He’s distractible, clumsy, overly talkative but painfully shy in large social situations. He likes to read, eat, and rest, and he can’t help but console and give to others.

The rest of the household calls him lazy, foolish, and much worse, and poor Zack has, to use a modern expression, internalized that everything he does is wrong, while his mother and brother always act right.

I wondered if Zack’s non-neurotypical tendencies would be used as metaphor in an “of the time” way, but Jordan Matthew Brown’s performance shapes him into a lovable character of depth and relatability.

A scene between him and Virginia who treats him like a person who can act and do better. The scene should be iconic.

Mint productions have such a distinct quality. They often introduce a modern coding, such as queerness or neurodiversity as in Zack, and as an audience member I like to puzzle out how that might have originally read onstage 100+ years ago.

The set always represents realism, in an overstuffed way that makes no mistake about the show being a period piece.

Sometimes I can’t decide if the productions are slightly amateurish or if the old fashioned texts just come out that way, or a little of both, but I don’t mind. It provides a verfremdungseffekt (distancing effect) that emphasizes how different things were, but the programming always reminds us of that which stays the same.

In a world in which money is everything and mistakes aren’t permitted, Zack finds himself with little agency. The misfortunes that come from poverty and social faux pas in this world are heartbreaking.

Zack, and others, were born under a bad sign. For a person in this situation, only someone who cares about you can save the day, and if they have money, that helps a lot.

At the play’s publication in 1916, there were many decades to come before much progress was made to rectify being born unlucky. And it seems we might be going back.

HAPPY FACE