For those who still find mordant mirth in the scene in “Gremlins” where Phoebe Cates’ character recalls the horrible way she learned the truth about Santa, Sheila Callaghan has got your holiday show. Jackalope Theatre’s production of Callaghan’s “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)” opens with a dumb-show depicting the freak Christmastime accident that claimed the life of 11-year-old Janice’s dad a year earlier.
But unlike Cates’ grieving-but-gorgeous Kate, Janice (Kristen Magee) is turning into a feral child with disturbing interests in chemical experiments. She holes up in her room, fighting with her dolls and imagining romantic interludes with Timberlake (Curtis Jackson) — when she and her numbed-out mother, Clara (Charlesanne Rabensburg) are not being besieged by the spirit of the crumbling Apartment (Tim Parker) itself.
The Apartment too is mourning better days. “I was a mansion once. A kept mansion,” he tells us. Now the plaster falls from the ceiling, the radiator sputters out inadequate warmth and the lights flicker ominously. Visits from Clara’s crazy-cat-lady (57 felines and counting) sister, Barbara (Rachel Slavick), do little to lighten the mood.
AJ Ware’s staging for Jackalope manages to find most of the dark whimsy in Callaghan’s piece while allowing moments of honest connection, particularly in the surprisingly hopeful conclusion. It’s not always an easy fit — if you’ve watched “Shameless” on Showtime, where Callaghan is a writer/producer, you might have some idea of the coarse light that shines on these characters from time to time. And despite Slavick’s good-hearted-but-clueless take on Barbara, the character as written remains a well-worn caricature of busybody spinsterhood.
But as an anatomy of grief and how it atomizes and separates people just when they need each other most, “Crumble” is a pretty smart cookie. Magee negotiates the tricky terrain of being an adult playing a child by simply committing to the emotional tsunami sweeping Janice away. A scene late in the show where she goes through an inventory of everything she is missing and mourning in her life carries sorrowful resonances with Emily Webb’s “goodbye, world” monologue from “Our Town.” Rabensburg’s Clara is wholly sympathetic, even as she bogs down in listing each elaborate menu item she is preparing to try to tempt the appetite of her daughter, who won’t leave her room to eat or clean herself.
Megan Truscott’s set, Claire Sangster’s lighting design and Thomas Dixon’s sound and original music capture the three-dimensional sense of decay in the apartment, while Sarah Jo White’s dingy frock-coat costume does the same for Parker’s deliciously histrionic Apartment. Brett Schneider’s “illusion design” works some cunning theatrical magic as well. But the real transformation comes in seeing how Janice and Clara learn to walk through fire in order to start rebuilding their frozen lives.
3 STARS
Through Dec. 20, Jackalope Theatre, Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N. Broadway, $20 at 773-340-2543 or jackalopetheatre.org