It’s an identity check….
The title character, a.k.a. Son, is slowed by the mind-numbing electronic voice attempting to verify his identity before it gives away the secrets stored in its online vault.
What is your mother’s maiden name?….
Where were you born?…
Where did you meet your spouse?…
What is the name of your favorite pet?…
And, what did your parents eat right before they conceived you? And, what did YOU eat before you conceived YOUR children??
Huh???
What does that have to do with trying to stop his mother from bankrupting him and his family as he discharges the duties of safeguarding finances in his designated role as the family Treasurer.
It’s actually a moment that has everything to do with The Treasurer— the engaging story of how an adult son— verging on senior status himself — tries to tame his unresolved feelings for his out-of-control narcissist of a mother. When he was thirteen she abandoned him and his brothers. Now, she is spending monies not her own like the proverbial drunken sailor. He— a scientist by training—-knows one sure thing about his mother: he doesn’t love her and that is why he is going to hell.
On a bare bones set, actor Mark Filiaci as the Son had opened the play explaining his hell-bound path. With the gift of playwright Max Posner’s often poetic script, we join Son on his routine bicycle ride to work. He ruminates on people wearing sad clothes, eating grass, and fretting if they are hell-bound. We never see her or meet her, but we get to intimately know Son’s wife —and we infer that his life, by most measures, would be considered one well-lived.
Except….
There is the annoying fact of his mother. She is incontinent, self-involved, and descending into dementia. Two actors morph into various roles of the Son’s brothers, shop clerks, telemarketers, people on the other end of wrong numbers and more— making her vulnerability laid bare. More, it’s her humanity and her son’s humanity and perhaps the humanity of all of us in the audience that is peeled down to its core as the story unfolds.
Acting at Carrboro’s ArtsCenter Theater on Par with Broadway and Beyond
In this reviewer’s opinion, Posner’s script gets a powerful boost by the caliber of acting on the stage. Posner’s script has more than a few potholes of saccharine sentimentality that the cast must navigate around, and they do so with great skill. Right from the gitgo Filiaci mesmerizes us with his first of many monologues. We are spellbound. Marcia Edmundson is so convincing as Son’s mother Ida, that you too might have difficulty imagining her playing any other role. She is Ida. And, how fun it must be for the ever morphing character actors Ben Apple and Jessica Flemming to do rapid switch character changes with barely a costume tweak. Director Derrick Ivey has assembled and brought out the best from a cast on par with Broadway, Off-Broadway, the actor-driven ensembles of theater cities like Chicago, and the best touring productions nationwide.
Expect The Treasurer and its well-drawn characters to capture your imagination. It’s a top pick for those of us who love great acting —though at times feeling a bit too long. If you happen to be grappling with a loved one’s dementia and seek an escape from the burden of it all— this might not be the diversion you seek.
RECOMMENDED
Photos courtesy of ArtsCenter Theater
WHEN:
Thru March 2, 2025
WHERE:
The ArtsCenter
400 Roberson Street
Carrboro, NC
TICKETS:
For more information and tickets visit the RedBird Theater website.
CAST:
Mark Filiaci, Marcia Edmundson, Jessica Flemming, Ben Apple
CREATIVE TEAM:
Directed by Derrick Ivey
Production Team:
JJ Bauer, Taylor Bugge, Chuck Catotti, Chris Eselgroth, Naveed Moeed, Rebecca Newton, Edith Snow, Erin West
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
