http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html

Terrific first acts are too often followed by a weak second act. Rarely do you see the reverse: a weak beginning blossoming into an outstanding second-half of the play. But that’s the case with The Boys Next Door, currently at Syracuse Stage.

Too bad, then, for the few patrons who on opening night left after Act 1, because they missed a wonderful Act 2. Not only does Tom Griffin’s script shuck the bathos, the easy laughs and some sentimentality early on in favor of genuine sentiment and interest-provoking drama in the second act, but Director Timothy Bond and his cast of merry misfits rise to the challenges of the script.

The lights come up on Michael Vaughn Sims’ naturalistic set (it even has a partial ceiling) of an apartment in a group home somewhere in New England. Residing there are four men ― two developmentally disabled, one operating on the ragged edge of schizophrenia, and one with a disability I couldn’t quite catch because the lines of Demetrios Troy, as the group home’s supervisor, Jack, were muffled on opening night.

That wasn’t a total loss, as the characters’ own actions pretty much speak for themselves.

As Arnold, Michael Joseph Mitchell is nervous, cranky, easily confused and quick to tell everybody that he’s going off to Russia if he isn’t treated as he deserves. If he seems a little nutty at the end, waiting in a New England station for the Moscow train, his feelings of bewilderment and despair are as normal as those of anybody in the audience ― with the slight exception, perhaps, that he doesn’t realize there’s a lot of water between the train station and his intended destination.

Samuel Taylor as Barry is clearly the schizoid one. He thinks he’s a golf pro, although his lessons tend to center on such matters as how to deal with a golf course’s hedges (as opposed to his student named Hodges) rather than what’s the correct iron to use. Barry is all loud golfer clothes, sight gags and one-liners in Act 1, but in the second act a painful encounter with his father leads to long, silent and powerful moments when we learn what it’s like to have your joys become bottomless despair. You don’t have to be schizophrenic to understand (Carey Eidel crafts a remarkable performance as Barry’s father). 

Then there are the two developmentally disabled characters: the doughnut eating, romance-seeking Norman and his easily confused apartment mate, Lucien, played by William Hall Jr. ― who quite amazingly came into the production only a week before opening night, although if you didn't know that you'd think he'd been with the cast from the first rehearsal.

Norman (the enormously talented Sean Patrick Fawcett) can’t function very well without the reassurance of the keys he wears on his belt. He has grown fat from eating far too many of the free donuts he gets in his job, and he falls in love with as many fears and apprehensions as any “normal” human I know. If his girlfriend Sheila (played touchingly by Alanna Rogers) seems at times to want to make his keys her own as badly as she desires him, she also lends herself to a charming pas de deux with Norman, sensitively staged by Director Bond, that ends the first act and reveals to us (if we ever had doubts) that the disabled can feel the sweet joys and the pangs of romance as strongly as the rest of us.

William Hall’s confused and awkward Lucien prides himself on a library card with his own name on it, although he can barely get halfway through the alphabet. But he knows, and lets us know, that his pain and confusion make him no less human than anybody sitting in the audience.

All four main characters follow their own trajectories as they welcome guests to their home, try to catch a rat that turns out to be something other than the presumed rodent, go off to their menial but satisfying jobs, and so forth. Each comes to a moment when his innate humanity is confirmed by his actions and words. 

Director Bond does something quite interesting in the ways he structures these moments: They move from something close to strict naturalism ― the inhabitants’ household tasks, missing welcome mats, a visit by a neighbor next door, and such, to a moment when the performances slip from naturalism into magic realism. In these moments the action and time stop. We see in Barry’s silence the pain and depth of his depression. As Norman and his new girlfriend Sheila dance at the end of the first act we see for a brief moment a transformation: These awkward, mentally and physically challenged individuals step out of character and suddenly dance gracefully to the music (nice work here by Sound Designer Jeremy J. Lee) and we see them not as the world sees them ― awkward, mentally and physically challenged ― but rather how they see themselves in their own souls as tender, loving and graceful people.

For Lucien, too, there is a moment that goes beyond the script into the wonder that far surpasses what words can express. He is called upon to meet with a governmental committee examining the plight of the disabled. After he delivers his confused, barely articulate testimony, he steps out of his role as a disabled person, comes forward into a spotlight and speaks to the audience, in measured phrases like a practiced orator, about what it is like to be abnormal in the eyes of the world when, in your heart and in your soul, you are ineffably as human as anyone in the audience.

I thought that Bond’s direction too easily lets the performance slip into sight gags, little vignettes and easy one-liners in Act 1. Part of that lies with the script, which lends itself to overdone exposition and hesitant dramatic progress. But the performances can't withstand the tug-and-pull of the script, and things end up a bit too cutesy and saccharine in this act. And while at first we laugh too easily (and a little uncomfortably) at what are stereotypes of the disabled early on, by the end we laugh in understanding along with the residence supervisor, Jack, who will be moving on to a new job and must leave the three remaining people in the home to fend for themselves with a new caregiver. 

We, like Jack, have been shown what is human and universal in those individuals whom society has too often tried to tuck away at its margins. Their souls are as beautiful as any "normal" person's, and their lives can be full when they are allowed to participate, as the rest of us, in the complexities of everyday life.

DETAILS BOX

What: The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffin, performed by Syracuse Stage. 

Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

When: Through Nov. 6

Length: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission 

Tickets: Adults, $28 - $40; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts Call 315-443-3275, or  http://www.SyracuseStage.org

Family guide: Recommended for audiences of all ages