Family dynamics have always been a fruitful source of material for playwrights, and Rebecca Lynn Goldfarb’s Impact: A Family Traumedy, directed by Rosie Corr and now playing at New York City’s The Tank, is a competent and provocative example.  Based on a true story, the piece revolves around a seemingly well-adjusted, middle class-but-not-rich Jewish family of five: There’s Mom (Shauna Bloom), Dad (Doug Shapiro), and three children.  Sarah (played by Goldfarb) is home from college for the summer.  Rylee (Sophie Knapp) is 13, and son Noah (Andrew Shapiro) is 16.  Three years earlier, the family had experienced a traumatic event– specifically, a car accident which stranded the family in a ditch– on the day before Noah’s Bar Mitzvah.  While everyone came out alive and without serious injury, the emotional wounds have not quite healed adequately when we meet the family in the present day.  In the three months leading up to Rylee’s own Bat Mitzvah, unresolved tensions bubble to the surface and threaten to tear the family apart.  It’s clear that everyone in the family sorta KNOWS that there’s a problem– but even when they try to communicate, it’s clear that they’re not, for lack of a better term, “in sync”. The audience feels their tension: There’s no question that there’s love in this family, but there’s also, sadly, a marked lack of affection.  At some points, THIS audience member for one wanted to yell out to the actors, “G*d damn it!  HUG EACH OTHER, PLEASE!” 

While the term “PTSD” is never used in Impact, it’s very likely that Mom, Dad, and the three kids are suffering from it in one way or another, although the disorder is manifesting itself in different ways for each of them.  Noah is reluctant to learn how to drive, is losing interest in previously loved hobbies, and– in the secondhand words of his peers– is “not OK”. Rylee is feeling ambivalent about her upcoming Bat Mitzvah.  But what slowly emerges is that the character of Sarah, the big sister, may be suffering most of all.  Any suspicion that she is experiencing any “favorite child syndrome”, even though she doesn’t want it, is confirmed when her parents tell her things like, “I’m just so glad we don’t have to worry about YOU!”  And as anyone with even a pop culture-style sense of psychology knows, the “perfect child” is often struggling VERY hard underneath to maintain that unattainable status.   
In many fourth wall-breaking “asides” throughout Impact, each of the characters gets to speak directly to the audience, giving some often painfully realistic insight on their individual situations.  Playwright Goldfarb is diplomatic and nuanced with her characters.  She lets them all have their say.  It’s clear that none of the five is anywhere near perfect, but certainly no one is “all wrong” either.  The character Rylee, for example, points out that at age 13, she is now expected to be an “adult” (at least from a religious perspective), but she isn’t allowed to drink or drive.  Worse, she doesn’t see anything exciting about adulthood when she looks at her parents, declaring with convincing evidence, “I don’t want to end up like that!”  The character’s apprehensions about her “big day” may have even deeper, darker roots: specifically, a challenge of faith dating back to that car accident.  

All the hard-working actors in Impact are excellent.  As the persona of modern-day Supermoms everywhere in these fast-moving times, Shauna Bloom is well-cast as “Mom” with her matter-of-fact directness and almost mechanical quest to keep things moving smoothly 24/7. Her character’s actions sees like the result, for better or for worse, of having to sometimes run a family like a business.  I don’t know how old  actors Sophie Knapp (“Rylee”) and Andrew Shapiro (“Noah”) are, but the two play teenagers very convincingly.  As Dad, the extremely charismatic Doug Shapiro plays the family patriarch with an accurate Gen X “DIY” style of coping, which emerges in moments such as his skepticism of psychotherapy.  Doug also takes the credit for the play’s funniest moments, offering some much-needed levity to a largely serious piece. There is indeed a hopeful and (Dare I say?) happy ending at the conclusion of Impact, but Ms. Goldfarb REALLY makes both her characters and the audience work very hard to get there. It’s worth it.

Impact: A Family Traumedy continues on Saturday, February 7th and Sunday, February 8th at 3PM at The Tank, 312 W 36th St, NYC.  Learn more and buy tickets at IMPACT: A Family Traumedy — The Tank.