New York City
The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family
$120
This three-play series shines an important, probing spotlight on the 2016 political season and is aptly timed to lead up to Inauguration Day 2017. The Gabriels will be performed in repertory, with several chances for audiences to see all three plays in one daylong marathon performance.
The first play in the cycle, Hungry, introduces the Gabriel family of Rhinebeck, New York. Family members discuss their lives, disappointments, and the world at large and nearby as they struggle against the fear of being left behind.
The second play, What Did You Expect?, brings the audience to the kitchen of the Gabriel family with the country now in the midst of the general election for president. In the course of one evening in the house they grew up in, history (both theirs and the country’s), money, politics, family, art, and culture are chopped up and mixed together while a meal is made around the kitchen table.
In the moving finale, the Gabriel family awaits the results of the presidential election on November 8, 2016. Women of a Certain Age takes place in the course of a single night, eight months after the audience first meets the Gabriels. Patricia, the family monarch, joins her children and daughters-in-law as they prepare a meal from the past and consider the future of their country, town, and home. Paying tribute to the difficult year behind them, the Gabriels compare notes on the search for empathy and authenticity at a time when the game seems rigged and the rules are changing.
Tony Award winner Richard Nelson wrote and directs this three-play cycle. His production, arriving in Washington, D.C., after a world premiere in New York City, retains its core acting company.