by Tom Chesek
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Adam Bradley, Susan Maris and Jenny Bacon get their mitts on a cosmic truth in “Struck,” the play by Sandy Rustin making its world premiere on July 2 at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.(Photo: Photo by SUZANNE BARABAS)
In “Struck,” the play that goes up in its world premiere this weekend at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, a woman finds her routine life taking an unexpected, maybe even cosmic turn when she is hit by a bicycle while crossing a New York City street.
For playwright Sandy Rustin, the inspiration for the “serious comedy” arrived seemingly out of the blue — when she was hit by a bicycle while crossing a New York City street.
While the actress, writer, artistic director and mom was fortunate to have sustained no serious injury from the incident, she did have a bit of recovery down-time with which to mull the cosmic variables that placed her and the bike rider on the same piece of pavement, at the same instant. She also got to thinking about a topic that was then making one of its intermittent appearances in the news.
“There was a story about a renewed effort to recover artworks that had been stolen by the Nazis, and return them to the families of the people they were stolen from,” says Rustin, navigating the space between her chauffeur-mom duties and the no-doubt glamorous life of the emerging dramatist. “Somehow the two events mushed together in my mind.”
The result of that mushing was “Struck,” a script that was workshopped and developed via Midtown Direct Rep, the theatrical company that Rustin co-founded in South Orange. Having also been presented to favorable reaction as a reading at NJ Rep, the five-character show makes its fully staged debut in a form that’s described by its creator as “a play about fate, ancestry, genealogy, and family connections.”
Recovering from her collision with destiny, the play’s protagonist Vera Resnick becomes certain that the seemingly random accident has happened for a highly specific reason — to the extent that her explorations into the background of the bike rider and the circumstances of the encounter reveal “a whole lot of unexpected surprises,” with repercussions for her husband, friends and “hippy-chic” neighbors.
Susan Maris, familiar to Rep regulars from her past work in “Happy” and the recent “Substance of Bliss,” stars alongside Jenny Bacon, Adam Bradley, Ben Puvalowski and Broadway veteran Matthew Shepard — each making their Long Branch debut — under the supervision of another seasoned “newcomer,” the in-demand director Don Stephenson.
For Sandy Rustin — whose earlier play “The Cottage” has had numerous regional productions on its way to a projected New York run next year — the chance to watch this cast and director at work has been well worth the repeated trips down the shore.
“Writing is a solitary sport…to me it’s really just the first layer of paint,” observes the improv-troupe veteran whose Off Broadway musical sketch comedy “Rated P (for Parenthood)” was optioned as an ABC-TV pilot by Kelly Ripa’s production company. “My favorite part is being in the room with all of the actors, the director, designers…everybody gets to put their own layer of paint on the finished work.”
STRUCK
WHERE: New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch
WHEN: July 1 at 8 p.m., July 2 at 3 p.m. (previews); July 2 at 8 p.m. (opening night with reception); July 3 at 3 p.m., then Thursdays through Sundays until July 31
$45; www.njrep.org or 732-229-3166
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