Review: The Substance of Fire Starring Rob Morrow Gives Off Only Half the Heat

Jon Robin Baitz’s The Substance of Fire could be a sincere one-act about two people ruled by rage who make themselves vulnerable to each other. Unfortunately in this production, the second act is shackled to a first act that feels like warmed-over Succession, which exists only to give context and ends up dragging everything down.

In the late 1980s, publisher Isaac Geldhart (Rob Morrow) battles his three adult children for control of the company. Though created by his father-in-law, Isaac believes he shepherded the company to moral fortitude, by fostering books that reflect the trauma of the human experience (i.e., the Holocaust, the nuclear bombing of Japan). He carries grief and guilt from his own experience as a Jew who escaped the camps while his family perished.

His children collectively own enough stock to take the company away from him, and due to his autocratic behavior and obsession with books that bomb financially, they question his competency. Three years later, after the fallout from the family’s war over the company, Issac wastes away his days in a depression when a social worker (Marcia Cross) makes a check-up call that reawakens both of their lives.

Act 1 of Baitz’s play shouts at its audience and offers little nuance. The children are such cyphers that one wonders if they really exist or are just demons in Isaac’s head hellbent on punishing him. It’s the connection between the social worker and Isaac that really springs to life. Their relationship is complicated, but it feels fresh, and says something about the suffering that hobbles us until we let it go.

Under Mike Reilly’s direction, the casting plays a big part in distancing, and later involving, the audience. The actors who play Geldhart’s three children — Barret T. Lewis as Martin, the teacher at Vassar; Fiona Dorn as Sarah, the actress on a children’s TV show; Emmitt Butler as Aaron, the son who feels he was hoodwinked into working for the firm but given no authority by his father — seem to be reading their lines without feeling the words. They either speak without seeming to listen to other characters or pause at length between lines. They do not inhabit their characters and rely on erratic hand gestures.

They have little chemistry with Morrow and do not seem like a family unit, not even a dysfunctional one. Conversely, Morrow and Cross work strongly together, building the fire about which the play hints in its title. They are a joy and find the humor in Baitz’s work, both sorely missing in Act 1.

Michael Mullen adds wit with his costumes, such as pairing Cross’s professional gray flannel dress with more juvenile-looking snowshoes, and dressing Butler in an oversized suit to visually portray his character’s unpreparedness for running the family business. Set designer Ryan Wilson brings a clever visual of the New York Skyline to the roof of the wall.

Earlier productions of The Substance of Fire have found layers in Act 1 that this production does not have. While the second act feels vital and timeless, the first now rings hollow.