Thorny with anxiety and resentment, Alex Levy’s production of The Lake Effect at 1st Stage bristles with the indecision to blame or to forgive. Three years after his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Rajiv Joseph’s The Lake Effect premiered to proud local acclaim, receiving the 2013 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. Trending away from the more surreal and existential themes of his breakout work, The Lake Effect is a one-room drama of naturalist styling that centers on the struggles of an Indian immigrant family and those imbricated by their strife.
Summoned back to Cleveland’s bitter snowscape just before their father’s sudden death, estranged siblings Priya (Surasree Das) and Vijay (Shaan Sharma) reunite in the failing Indian restaurant in which they grew up. Priya has come up from Florida and becomes determined to give her father a proper send-off, while Vijay, embittered by a cold relationship with his late father, looks for new outlets for his resentment. When met by Bernard (Jonathan Del Palmer), a new and unfamiliar friend of their father’s who knows far more about their family than they do, Priya and Vijay must contend with both the secrets they’ve kept from one another, as well as those their father has kept from them.
1st Stage takes up Joseph’s play with a nuanced and empathetic view toward this family’s changing fortunes. Instantly immersed in Kathryn Kawecki’s detailed set, the audience is well-primed for a show of revealing and confrontational honesty. The restaurant is open yet intimate, inviting a comfort at times congruent with and at others in conflict with Priya, Vijay, and Bernard’s changing attachments.
Surasree Das’ Priya commands the stage with a coy and impetuous presence, taking big strides through the lives of others yet effacing her footsteps. Das carries Priya with special care and resilience through the show, empathetic even to her faults. Shaan Sharma brings a defensive yet loving combativeness to his portrayal of Vijay, forging a strained yet inextricable link with Priya and Bernard. When Das and Sharma play together, the years peel away. They quarrel, one-up one another, reminisce — and Bernard joins in relentlessly. Del Palmer is the heart of Alex Levy’s production, infusing the show with its most direct and earnest appeal for human connection.
With the help of Lorraine Ressegger-Slone’s tactful movement and intimacy choreography, Das, Sharma, and Del Palmer engage in a dance of anxious reconciliations and fraught first impressions. Punctuated by engaging blocking and effective stage pictures, the fates of this ragtag group of strangers are externalized and offered up to its audience for judgment. What remains is a show and an audience united under one ethical conundrum, each left wondering if forgiveness is still possible.
Running Time: 80 minutes with no intermission.
The Lake Effect plays through February 23, 2025 (Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 2 pm), at 1st Stage, located at 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Purchase tickets ($55 for general admission, with limited tickets for $25 and $40 at each performance) by calling the box office at 703-854-1856, going online, or in person before each performance. Select performances are open-captioned and/or audio-described. Open seating.
The playbill for The Lake Effect is online here.
COVID Safety: 1st Stage is now a mask-optional space with select mask-required performances offered for each show. See 1st Stage’s complete COVID Safety Information here.
The Lake Effect
Written by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Alex Levy
Lighting Design by William K. D’Eugenio; Sound Design by Navi; Costume Design by Lynly A. Saunders
