All those boxes piled up in our basement may go untouched for years — yet they hold irreplaceable memories. An oncoming storm in George Brant’s Salvage gives three women only one night to save a lifetime of such memories.
The Cleveland Heights resident and playwright explores loss, entrapment and closure in his deeply emotional play, which makes its Ohio debut May 5-20 at None Too Fragile Theater in Akron.
Brant’s play picks up after Danny dies, and his sister, mother and high school sweetheart are brought together to face their past as a storm rages and the basement is about to flood.
“All of them are stuck in their own way in this time period,” says Brant. “And none of them have moved quite passed it.”
Amanda, Danny’s ex-girlfriend, claims she’s moved on, but she’s written a book that seems like it’s about Danny. Meanwhile, Danny’s sister, Kelly, has been emotionally trapped in her childhood home since her brother passed, and Danny’s mother, Roberta, still grieving over her son, is worried Kelly will never move out.
Brant first crafted the play and wrote the parts for the actresses who appeared in the original performance in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2012. The women helped him get a unique perspective of the characters’ identities and backgrounds by closely working on their emotional dialogues and interactions, adding depth to the characters.
Brant, who’ll be attending the play, is curious to see what the Akron actresses bring to the roles.
“The hope is in the play, or someone watching it, is that the three can find some way to move past this moment that seemed to have trapped them all,” he says.
