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THINGS aren't going well for the Conroys, the combative, working-class New Hampshire clan at the center of Daisy Foote's play "Bhutan."
Matriarch Mary (Tasha Lawrence), who works in a bank, is recently widowed when her husband was struck by lightning. Her sister Sara (Amy Redford, daughter of Robert) has just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend, who promptly married a woman he's known for all of two weeks. Son Warren is in jail serving a sentence for manslaughter, and teenage daughter Frances (Sarah Lord) naturally yearns to escape from it all.
That her dreams take the form of imagining a trip to the titular and exotic Asian country of Bhutan is but one of the schematic elements of this dreary domestic drama, which at one point features a frenzied catfight between two female characters.
The playwright, daughter of the esteemed playwright Horton Foote, has clearly inherited his empathy for downtrodden, small-town folk. But while his works resonate with a moving subtlety, "Bhutan" hits its points and symbols with a sledgehammer.
Told in an often confusing, two time-period structure, "Bhutan" has relevant points to make about a way of life that is fast disappearing - here, in typically overemphatic mode, the family literally has to sell off some of its land - but the writing (and, for that matter, the performances and staging) seems forced.
It's nearly impossible to empathize with any of the unpleasant and misguided characters, save the little girl whose own mother tries to squash her dreams of going to college.
BHUTAN Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St.; (212) 239-6200. Through Dec. 9.
Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
