INTERVIEW: Grandparents are the focus of new Geffen play ‘The Reservoir’
Photo: From left, Liz Larsen, Carolyn Mignini, Jake Horowitz, Lee Wilkof and Geoffrey Wade star in The Reservoir at Geffen Playhouse. Photo courtesy of Jeff Lorch / Provided by Geffen Playhouse with permission.
Jake Brasch’s new play, The Reservoir, is currently playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. The show is fictionalized, but somewhat based on the playwright’s own life, and follows a young man named Josh who is spiraling out of control. To stop his descent, he decides to build a stronger relationship with his four grandparents, who offer him advice and wildly inappropriate jokes. The play, directed by Shelley Butler, continues through July 20.
“It’s been such a joy to work here,” Brasch said about his time at the Geffen. “I like to say it’s sort of a two-hour dance piece for one young boy and four senior citizens. It’s a huge play, and there’s a lot of movement. And it’s slippery and strange, and so we’re building something that doesn’t feel like any other play that I’ve ever seen. And so that part is extremely exciting and kind of scary. … I’m totally in love with our cast and having a great time. I feel artistically challenged and excited for audiences to see what we’re cooking up.”
Helping bring Brasch’s vision to life is a cast that consists of Adrián González, Marin Hinkle, Jake Horowitz, Liz Larsen, Carolyn Mignini, Geoffrey Wade and Lee Wilkof. The play premiered at the New Play Summit at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; that’s where dramaturg Olivia O’Connor saw the piece and decided to pitch it for the Geffen season.
“She was the original champion, and this was, I guess, 2023,” Brasch said. “And they kind of have been champions all the while, and …. [artistic director] Tarell [Alvin McCraney] and I had connected at some point earlier. And he really became a champion of the play, so they’re doing the play for the right reason. They really love it and care about it and believe in it and have worked really hard to get it across the finish line, so that’s the history. It’s sort of for the love of the thing that it kind of came to be, which in the theater right now there’s fewer and fewer new plays that are being championed, so I feel so grateful.”
Brasch, who is also a performer, composer and clown, said the play is “semi-autobiographical,” but still invented for the stage. Josh, the main character, is a young, queer, Jewish boy who has dropped out of school and moved home to get sober. He is nearing rock bottom, and so he decides to take a right turn and reconnect with his four grandparents — four people who are billed as zany, hilarious, unpredictable, horny and wild.
The playwright said Josh is in a “fuzzy brain space” and also has to deal with his grandparents’ memory loss from dementia. “So he starts the play in a pretty rough space, but the thing that I’m proud of is that this is about Alzheimer’s and dementia, but it’s very much still a comedy,” they said. “So he starts the play in a rough place, but sort of not in a place of acceptance and kind of is using humor as a coping mechanism.”
Brasch, who is making their professional playwrighting debut with The Reservoir, has many fond memories with their own grandparents. For example, one of their grandmothers introduced the aspiring writer to theater when they were quite young and didn’t bring them to the typical children’s shows.
“I like to say I was born a 40-year-old gay man, so I kind of had my grandma’s interests very young,” Brasch said. “And she took me to museums, to the opera, to the symphony and to theater. I remember one time I said I wanted to go to Grease, and she was like, ‘No, we’re going to see a George Bernard Shaw play. … I’m not going to baby you.’ And then another of my grandmas, she and I would play piano duets. I had a grandpa who was an absolute schmuck that was just hilarious that I largely credit for my sense of humor, so part of the wonder of writing this play has been getting to reflect on those relationships that were a part of me but were sort of unexamined.”
Brasch added: “I think a lot of us have our grandparents, and in a lot of stories grandparents are sort of in the background as opposed to at the center. So this play has been such a joy for me to really excavate those relationships and be like, woah, actually this is a huge part of who I am. And chatting with a lot of folks who have seen the play, I think a lot of people have that similar experience of being like, oh wait, this is a huge part of me. We love to talk about our parents, not so much our grandparents.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Reservoir, written by Jake Brasch, continues through July 20 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Click here for more information and tickets.
