Salvage

George Brant’s clever dark comedy about coping with loss is set in the dank, dusty basement of the home where Danny Ashburn lived for all 40 years of his life. Now that he has died in an accident, the women he was closest to find themselves surrounded by boxes of his things; with a violent storm heading in, they have little time to decide what will be saved. His tough but mentally exhausted mother, Roberta (played brilliantly by Janie Tamarkin), wants to throw it all out and move forward; the Danny she loved died when his heart was broken years before, leaving only a failure trapped in the past. But his fragile, delusional younger sister, Kelly (a likably innocent Mariah Sage), would gladly live amid piles of Danny's stuff to preserve her brother’s memory. When his ex-girlfriend, Amanda (Rebecka Jones, cooly sophisticated), arrives to pay her respects, a whirlwind of conflicting emotion arise: Roberta blames her for Danny’s mediocrity, but Kelly has put her on a pedestal for years. (“I always thought you’d come back and rescue him," she admits. "Like Sleeping Beauty.") And since Amanda has written a bestselling novel based on her relationship with Danny, her motives are in question. As the dialogue among these three women intensifies into a roller-coaster ride of vulnerability and deception, one shocking secret is revealed after another. Yet despite the harsh twists of what-ifs and missed chances, the play leaves you with the saving graces of family loyalty and endurance. (Visit our Fringe Festival page for more reviews, and fringenyc.org for more information.)—Melissa Simonetti