PIECES
by Paul Hood
Phil Blakeny tries to come to grips with the impending closing of his family’s furniture store, something he has kept a secret from his wife and daughter. As things began to further unravel as Phil works long hours to keep things afloat, his reality is soon blurred when parts of his life leading up to the closing come to life, and Phil’s late father returns to find out what’s really happening beneath the surface of Phil’s failure. “You’re not only selling a piece of furniture. You’re selling life. You’re giving form to possibilities, shaping dreams made by young couples or the bachelor just starting out, the elderly man or woman starting their golden years in a new home. You’re filling in the void.” What happens when a father’s dreams for his family start slipping away? Captivating until the last moment, this beautiful family drama captures what the American dream means to small towns.
- Cast Size: 4M 4W
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Paul Hood is a Playwright/Screenwriter/Director/Photographer and Actor in Harrisburg, PA. His productions include:Atrophy, The Itch of Gloria Fitch, My Electric Life, The Imposter’s Snow Cone Machine and Apostle of Freedom, which he co-wrote with renowned Voice Over Artist, Leonard Dozier. His plays The Sequin Royale, Pieces, andHappy Hour were part of Bare Bones Theatre Ensemble’s New Play Workshop Series in 2020. His most recent productions are Kill Keller, Pieces, Orchid, and African Company: The Mystery of the African Grove Theatre, which featured in The Shakespeare Theatre Associations “Classics Fest” at Gamut Theatre located in Harrisburg Pa’s Arts District. His theatrical directing credits include: Blacktop Sky, Superior Donuts, Topdog/Underdog, Nat Turner in Jerusalem, Come Blow Your Horn, Closing Doors, and most recently, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. As an actor his theatrical credits include The Mother****** with the Hat, Waiting for Godot, My Electric Life, Lizzie Borden, Lizzie Borden, Rashomon, Glengarry Glen Ross, and the award winning independent short film, Calls. Other film credits include River City Stories, which he also co-wrote. He is represented by CentralPA Talent for film, television commercials, and print work.
From Theatre Harrisburg’s Krevsky Center, playwright Paul Hood and Director Francesca Amendolia bring to the stage “Pieces,” a dramatic, slice-of-life family story, pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle of dysfunctional generational dynamics and tragedy.
We meet husband Phil Blakeny (Andrew “Sarge” Dixon) and wife Kes Blakeny (Dana Kinsey) set amongst a melee of stacked furniture that triples as the family’s living room, furniture store and dream sequences. With as many pieces as I recognized in the pile of furniture, I’m pretty sure the set designers loaded their truck full up at my grandmother’s yard sale. And probably yours, too. The accumulation is a metaphor for years of unprocessed emotions and stored secrets.
Central to the family drama is a troubled marriage and Phil’s core struggle with failure in realizing his dreams. Not only does Phil fall short in providing for his family when business slows at his inherited furniture store, “The Dream,” but he also loses himself in the shadow of his father Graham Blakeny’s (John “Chick” Lee) legacy of success, back when “The Dream” served as a source of pride for the neighborhood.
Instead of helping Phil at the furniture store, Kes nags him about spending too much time working, and then she steps out with another man. Kinsey finds a balance with her lonely character, playing her both as vulnerable and likable, but still saying and doing annoying, selfish things, like cherry-picking the best furniture for herself.
Dixon takes a more subtle approach to his character, but his journey spans deeper than he wants to delve. He takes the audience along for a gut-punching dream sequence—comparing his life to his father’s expectations. My heart aches for Phil, wearing his wrinkled suit and stocking feet, juxtaposed with his father’s sharp-cut silhouette, complete with spats and a fedora. It was as if Phil didn’t feel worthy enough to step into his father’s shoes. His father asks him, “Is this the life you have or the one you want?” It’s a fair, yet layered question, and Phil struggles to answer without wallowing in the comfort that is denial.
Times are tough with the big box stores siphoning customers. As the store dissolves into a dream state, Phil doesn’t tell his wife that he can’t afford to pay their daughter Elé’s (Mia Thornton) college tuition. Thornton brings a self-assuredness to her role that lets the audience know that Elé will forge her own way, in both college and in life. No matter what happens with her parents, we’re not worried about her.
Playwright Paul Hood plants plenty of symbolism to add extra meaning, weaving past and present scenes together, skipping around in time. Although the dialogue is poetically thick at times when Phil and Kes talk about their love for each other, the trajectory of their love story takes the audience nowhere predictable.
When it comes to the comic relief this play absolutely requires for the level of gravity it contains, the stage crew stole the show. Instead of wearing traditional black garb and doing their darndest to blend silently into the background, furniture movers Tessa Eberlein (Fenton), Adelyn Heck (Adelyn) and Daniel Hutchins (Daniel) wore convincing work uniforms, clunked the furniture around, and hilariously groused at each other through numerous set changes. It would be tempting to see this play multiple times to hear the movers’ ad-libs from one show to the next.
An honorable mention for humor goes to Gerren Wagner for her playful portrayal of the mischievous Hota Pasquale, Kes’s best friend and go-to bad girl. Although her character is not as fleshed out as the others, Hota would still be a blast to hang with, that rare friend who plunks herself way deep into your business and doubles as family.
Most of the family scenes in “Pieces” feel laden with sadness and regret for a family haunted by disillusionment and mental anguish, yet simultaneously fragmented when laid against the different pieces that move in and out of a changing life. Amendolia’s note sums the play best, “Sometimes broken things cannot be fixed.”
Hood alludes to a “suitable, but not spoon-fed conclusion.” He makes the unpredictability work in this play, giving the untied threads he left hanging a true-to-life feel. It’s also true of good fiction—you keep thinking about it long after the story has been told. Sometimes the seams in the sofa aren’t neatly stitched together.
Written By Gina Napoli for The Burg Magazine.
February 11th, 2023
Playwright Paul Hood and director Francesca Amendolia bring the thought-provoking, slice of life drama Pieces to the Theatre Harrisburg stage through February 19th. Pieces is the story of a man, Phil Blakeny, and his struggle to hang on to the American dream as it falls apart around him. The show takes the audience on a journey that spans real life, Phil’s dreamworld, and a fragmented reality.
The incredible set and lighting are creatively designed to emphasize the themes of the show and to give the audience clues about whether the scene is depicting reality or not. The costumes suit each character beautifully and show careful attention to detail, including showing that Phil literally is trying to fill his father, Graham Blakeny’s shoes.
Diego Sandino and Gerren Wagner take on the roles of Delphy Wintor and Hota Pasquale, friends of the Blakeny family. John “Chick” Lee, Andrew “Sarge” Dixon, Dana Kinsey, and Mia Thornton portray the Blakeny family-Graham, Phil, Kes, and Elé. Sandino, who plays Delphy, Phil’s friend who becomes involved with Kes, has tremendous presence that heightens the energy of his scenes. Wagner’s comedic timing and skill at delivering her lines with just the right amount of sarcasm and wit makes her performance as Hota delightful to watch.
Dixon gives a solid and nuanced performance as Phil, expressing deep emotion through his voice. Lee is poised and suave in his portrayal of Graham, Phil’s father and the founder of the furniture store The Dream. Dixon and Lee interact beautifully in the dream sequences. Kinsey displays Kes’s feelings of fear, loneliness, and disillusionment well, while also highlighting her exacting standards and selfishness. Thornton gives one of the best performances of the evening as Kes and Phil’s daughter Elé. She has wonderful stage presence, and her posture, gestures, and facial expressions are perfectly crafted to play the college student who is worried about her parents. She subtly adjusts each of these elements to show that her character has aged later on in the play.
The scene changes are executed by a dynamic trio of actors-Daniel Hutchins (Daniel), Adelyn Heck (Adelyn), and Tessa Eberlein (Fenton)-who, rather than changing the scenes in a blackout as surreptitiously as possible, take on the roles of furniture store workers moving merchandise. They exist in the space in between each scene, bringing both humor and realism to the production. Their ad-libbed lines are ingenious, making their performances this reviewer’s favorite part of the show.
Pieces is a show that requires the viewer to confront hard truths about life, and it does so through a creative exploration of a very relatable situation interspersed with humor-just like real life. As playwright Paul Hood writes in his note, “It is the journey I wanted to take audiences on, a mind trip to make people think and leave wondering about their lives and the lives of those closest to them.”
Review Pieces.