No sane human would ever want to spend one second with the Birlings.
As they stand in their living area, dressed to the nines celebrating a family engagement, their unfunny jokes and posh, uppity arrogance fueled by Port wine conveys the impression that nothing can shake or harm them.
But there is one man, a disruptor of sorts, who knocks, enters, and demands answers. A young girl died by suicide after drinking poison. The choice was hers, but how did each of these Birlings contribute to this promising life meeting an tragically early end?
City Lights Theater Company has kicked off its latest season with J.B. Priestley’s 1945 classic “An Inspector Calls.” While the play itself shows its advanced age in moments, especially in an extended epilogue that loses steam, the production often maintains maximum engagement through a fantastic cast.
The year is 1912, and conversations sound awfully close to Titanic socialites, using terms such as “unsinkable” while guffawing snootily. There is nary a hint of self-interrogation, but why does there need to be? These folks, including the matriarch Sybil (Doll Piccotto), jaunting around the house in a tiara, have got it made. The upcoming nuptials between Gerald (Heren Patel) and Sheila (Sydney Harmon) have everyone giddy with anticipation.
What that glee does not account for is Inspector Goole (Richard Newton), a gent assumed to be from the local police station. The inspector isn’t accusing anyone here of murder, but is investigating something more sinister — the role of each in the demise of someone whose poverty relegated her life to one unworthy of dignity.
To that point, would it have destroyed the filthy rich bank account of bloviation extraordinaire Arthur (Erik Gandolfi), to grant three extra shillings a week to Eva (Lizzie Izyumin) so she could eat a wee bit more? At least Sheila is willing to admit her own role in this Eva’s downfall, proceeding on a path of penance throughout the piece. The same can’t be said of Gerald, whose culpability means reckoning with new discoveries that may shake up the nuptials. And in one of the play’s few legitimately funny moments, Sybil’s demand for accountability is just, until she realizes it’s her son Eric (Myles Kenyon Rowland) who might have some answering to do.
What director Marc Anderson Phillips creates well is mood. The characters carry a heaviness in an exposition-laden Act 1, which moves along dryly, but is essential in the structure of the story. Phillips goes to great pains to create this odd, cruel world where empathic forces aren’t part of this family’s worldview. The established chill begins to dissipate as the story moves forward, Phillips accentuating the thrill of the text mightily.
Ron Gasparinetti’s blank, white set sits on a tight spiral splashed with Paul Skelton’s all-encompassing light design. This is Goole’s office, with Newton’s choices showcasing a man who understands that negotiations come from places of power. Why does he need to respond to any of these blowhards simply out for themselves? Goole is armed with the truth, which is no match for the self-preservation instincts of the Birlings.
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Piccotto and Gandolfi bring veteran presence to the proceedings with authoritative command. Those anglophiles, engaging with costume dramas such as “The Crown,” can certainly see the parallel delusion that exists within the pair, all done with lots of sharp British accent work (Newton doubles as the dialect coach).
The moral core of the show belongs to Sheila, the only person worthy of our affection. Harmon is a young dynamo who makes sure her Sheila will not go gentle into that goodnight. It is fitting that Sheila, after the family receives some relief, refuses to go back to what she was before. Due to a lack of humanity, the results of the denouement do not register one iota for most. Humanity is shared, and kindness and warmth must inform that humanity. Only Sheila bothers to learn this.
Wondering if the inspector is real or not isn’t what makes Priestley’s script so powerful, timely, and prescient. It’s the wrong question. A better inquiry the play forces us to reckon with is this — when you’re in a rainstorm with someone else and you have the only umbrella, who’s the first person you move to keep dry?
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23); @davidjchavez
‘AN INSPECTOR CALLS’
By J.B. Priestley, presented by City Lights Theater Company
Through: Oct. 20
Where: City Lights Theater, 529 S. Second St., San Jose
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes with two intermissions
Tickets: $20-$63; cltc.org