On Sunday, The Pearl Theatre Company unveiled the final show of its 2009-2010 season: Frank D. Gilroy’s deceptively deep The Subject Was Roses, which garnered the Pulitzer Prize in 1965. Wearing the uniform of the classic American family drama, Roses centers around the homecoming of John and Nettie Cleary’s veteran son, Timmy. Yet, the play is so much more than that; it is, at its core, a study of strategic warfare.
Set in the Bronx in 1946, Roses is a story riddled in trinities. The Cleary family, prey to the single-child syndrome, can most appropriately be viewed as a triangle with John perched upon the uppermost axis. He is a man leading a double-life, the all-too-familiar Irishman who always has more than two cents to share on every “outside” matter, but when it comes to the dealings within the home, he is reluctant to toss even the scantiest of emotions on the table. Impoverished in childhood, John married-up when he settled down with pretty, matching gloves and hat Nettie, whom his parents snidely dubbed “the lady.” Wielding a machete wit to leave his fellow pub patrons in stitches, and a charm that could bewitch the panties off of any woman, John Cleary was—and still is—both the envy of every man and the weakness of every woman.
At the base of the triangle, we have Nettie, devoted mother and wife, who once set out to walk the unpaved feminist road of becoming a working woman, only to hit a speed bump of fate, causing her to miss her first day at the office—her first day of a life that could have been. Defeated by the alternative route, in John, Nettie saw the next best thing: a man unlike her true-blue father who had cherished tradition, never once forgetting to send her a dozen red roses on her birthday. John, on the other hand, was a rogue, a man who knew the rules and how to get around them. As a boy, John knew only misfortune; he had pulled himself up by the seams of the world and he would continue to climb. He was going places, and by marrying him—Nettie thought—so was she.
Alas, the two tied the knot, Timmy was born, and only after creating their family did the parents realize that the places John had mapped-out were not the same places that Nettie had in mind. In moving to Brazil, the epicenter of the coffee bean trade, John saw a jungle of dollar signs. Nettie counted the miles—a whole continent’s worth—and said it was out of the question, much too far from her family. If they relocated, who would visit Mama and her crippled nephew, Willis? They had only each other. And when John surprised his wife and son with a lake house in Jersey, Nettie felt betrayed. He hadn’t even consulted her. Nettie was a city girl, finding no allure in a summer swarming with mosquitoes. An hour’s drive away, weekend traffic inevitable, they’d never make it in time for Sunday night dinner at her mother’s house.
War was afoot. The Clearys had split into two camps: that of John, the other of Nettie. Timmy, the product of both parties, became a potential ally. The parents vied for their son’s allegiance, and although John, the boisterous breadwinner, ultimately reigned over the apartment, it was Nettie who secured Timmy’s trust, taking care of the sickly child as missing school became routine. It was clear to Nettie that the dreams of her past had long ago dissipated, and so she redirected her energy into others: Mama, Willis, and of course, Timmy. He was coddled until the day he suited-up in olive-drabs and was sent overseas. Before his departure, he had only known himself as his mother’s son.
After three years of firing machine guns, having nightmares of bombs dropping, and witnessing the human horror of concentration camps, the magically heartier Timmy Cleary returns home—a romantic. He rarely speaks of what he saw, or what he did; the single time he makes the attempt, he turns his back to the audience. The GI bill is a subject he’d much rather discuss (though John assures him that the Clearys have no need for the government’s money). Timmy tells his father he wants to study literature at university, and like every good writer, he prods his surroundings for his story. How did his parents meet? Why did they pick one another? In excavating the origins of his parents’ relationship, Timmy hopes to caulk the fissure in his parents’ marriage, forging a peace treaty out of truth.
Perhaps the plot can seem a tad ridiculous: a malleable young man, who seems unaffected by the Holocaust, makes sly attempts rekindle whatever it is that his parents may have ignited twenty-odd years ago. His mission being to form a second alliance, this time with his father, and to have his mother finally see things from her husband’s vantage point. That said, Roses has a comforting timelessness to it. It’s relatable. And the performances, with the spoonful of saccharine dialogue aside, are genuine. Matthew Armendt, who plays Timmy, can cry on a dime and his drunken philosophizing is highly entertaining. Carol Schultz, as Nettie, presents a timidity that is tangible. In fact, at times she actually trips over the kitchen carpeting—and whether or not it’s choreographed, it works. But, it is Dan Daily as John who captures the show. With his brusque voice and whiskey-blossomed cheeks, he is the perfect man for the role. He is at once comical and despicable. It takes a fine to actor to make his audience believe that behind his condescending, adulterating-yet-churchgoing exterior is a man with a big heart, a man who—when practically put at gunpoint—reveals a harbored, swelling love for his wife and son.
The Subject of Roses will be playing at The Pearl Theatre Company’s New York City Center Stage II through May 9, 2010. www.pearltheatre.org.
