вЂњThe HumansвЂ™вЂ™ won the 2016 Tony Award for best play and was also a Pulitzer finalist, as was KaramвЂ™s вЂњSons of the Prophet,вЂ™вЂ™ which received its world premiere at BostonвЂ™s Huntington Theatre Company in 2011 before moving to off-Broadway, in slightly revised form. On this occasion he has something to tell his daughters, and he is trying to work up the nerve to do so. вЂњDonвЂ™t you think it should cost less to be alive?вЂ™вЂ™ he asks, in one of the playвЂ™s most plangent lines.Д®rik has been troubled by spooky dreams lately. Deirdre is an office manager whose bosses are four decades younger than her and make five times her salary.ДЄnd what of Erik, who has worked for nearly three decades at a Catholic school, first as the head of maintenance, then as equipment manager? He seems distracted, lost in private thought, as he pokes about the apartment, frets about the noises from upstairs and spotty cellphone coverage, and complains about the price of things. Brigid, an aspiring composer, is working two bartending jobs and is struggling to win even an unpaid internship while devastated by a half-hearted letter of recommendation from a professor. The human embodiment of that generalized sensation is вЂњMomoвЂ™вЂ™ (Lauren Klein), ErikвЂ™s AlzheimerвЂ™s-afflicted mother, on whom the family touchingly dotes as she utters sounds that are unintelligible yet sometimes reflect the mood in the room.ДЄimee is an attorney whose standing at her law firm has just eroded in dramatic fashion, whose heart has just been broken by the end of a longtime relationship with her girlfriend, and who is facing surgery for a longstanding medical condition. Also on hand is 34-year-old daughter Aimee (Therese Plaehn).ДЇor individual reasons large and small, the Blakes are plagued by worry about diminished prospects and a larger sense that itвЂ™s all slipping away from them. Erik and Deirdre have traveled from Scranton, Pa., to the ground floor/basement apartment in New York CityвЂ™s Chinatown that 26-year-old daughter Brigid (Daisy Eagan) has just moved into with her boyfriend, Richard (Luis Vega). They make us believe that the Blakes have a history together that matters deeply to them, and вЂњThe HumansвЂ™вЂ™ is leavened with humor built on that history and on their affectionate teasing of one another.Д«ut there is friction, too, and a pervasive sense of stress and unease churning beneath the surface as the Blakes gather for Thanksgiving dinner. MantelloвЂ™s superb cast - headed by a never-better Richard Thomas and Pamela Reed as parents Erik and Deirdre, both around 60 - creates a natural-seeming rapport onstage at the Shubert. We are not in Albee country or in the realm of Tracy LettsвЂ™s вЂњAugust: Osage County,вЂ™вЂ™ where to be in a family is to enter a pact of mutually assured destruction. The Blakes are a loving clan, and both the playwright and director Joe Mantello regard them with compassion. Yet Karam also anchors вЂњThe HumansвЂ™вЂ™ in the specifics of event and character.

Deirdre playwright crossword