Festen, now playing at 12th Avenue Arts, makes me want to talk about structural choices and details the way my friend’s uncles used to talk about classic cars. But because that kind of talk can lead to the shotgunning of Busch Lights and the air-guitaring of every song on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Second Helping, I’ll just use my own language to extol this production’s virtues.
Based on Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 film The Celebration, the play is about power. It’s about the impossibility and yet the necessity of speaking truth to power, even and especially in the house of power. It’s a simple setup: A family gets together to celebrate Daddy Warbucks’s birthday. The golden child takes an emotional dump in the family punch by revealing the family’s dirtiest secrets. Then an hour passes without intermission and you’re glad for it…
