Upon recently watching a production of Theresa Rebeck’s Sunday on the Rocks at the Bread & Roses Theatre, questions regarding ‘period’ plays in general (and this particular production) flooded my mind. Hopefully, as I ruminate here, some of these random thoughts will prove useful for readers examining other shows in the future.

With revivals of 30-year-old plays such as Sunday on the Rocks, how they are perceived is dictated by the prescient themes that relate to today, the insight and experience of the original time period by the the creative team, plus the age of the playwright and the demographic they are writing about. Then there is the ‘baggage’ that present audiences bring, as the values, opinions and behaviour of yesteryear are unconsciously (or consciously) evaluated with the 21st century.

As for this particular play, something else to bear in mind is that in the 1980s and ’90s, sociopolitical experiences for people in the UK and US weren’t necessarily identical – the tenures of Reagan, Bush (Snr) and Clinton were broadly ‘optimistic’ versus the divisive years of Thatcher in the UK (and to a lesser extent John Major’s).

Anyway, to the play at hand…

Sunday on the Rocks focuses on four women (who are 30 upwards) who share a flat in Boston. While ages aren’t always a prerequisite for characters, I mention them here because a) conversations in the play revolve around the choices the women make that are influenced by their age and b) it gives an indication of what generation Brebeck is interested in (and indeed, who Brebeck herself may identify with). While the women are all very different people, one in particular (Jessica – Julie Cheung-Inhin) is ostensibly different from the others. Anyway, while Jessica is out one Sunday morning, the other flatmates (Gayle – Rachael Bellis, Jen – Olivia Gibbs-Fairley) follow the example of Elly (Candace Leung) in joining her in drinking Scotch for breakfast.

In the spirit of vino veritas, each person opens up about what is happening in their respective lives and ‘confessions’ are divulged. In the case of Elly, she announces she’s pregnant, but as she doesn’t love the father of the child, she plans on getting an abortion. Also, Elly thinks her boyfriend’s marriage proposal is not so much a romantic gesture as a knee-jerk response to keep the child. Meanwhile, Jen has problem with a male acquaintence who sees her being friendly with everyone (except him) and in frustration, wonders why she doesn’t consider him a ‘potential suitor’… As for Gayle, her present love life doesn’t have any drama, but the ‘skeletons in her closet’ jolts even the normally jaded Elly.

Now for a bit of context of the era covered… Born in 1958, Rebeck is someone who would be classed as one of ‘Generation Jones’ (the often overlooked age group between ‘Baby Boomers’ and Generation X), much like the 20-something actors who played teenagers in ‘Brat Pack’ movies. As for the characters in the play, while Generation X was around at the time, they would have been in their early to mid-20s, while the women in the play were at the younger end of Generation Jones. This generation were children when the ‘Sexual Revolution’ first took place, women’s rights were acknowledged and Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court made abortion legal. Compared to their parents and older siblings, Generation Jones had a hitherto unprecented level of social freedoms and accepted them as a given. Also, as someone originally from the more conservative Midwest, Brebeck would be able to observe and contrast ‘cosmopolitan’ attitudes to dating and sex etc, on the East Coast, versus ‘traditional’ values inland.

Now back to the play… There are aspects to Jessica’s character that seem ‘artificial’ in the sense that whatever opinions the other women have, Jessica is supposedly diametrically opposed to them. When we do, however, meet her in person, she has arguably the ‘anal’ attributes of Monica from Friends, but in terms of her views on sex, children and so on, these are all things she prizes within the confines of marriage. Interestingly, Gayle repeatedly defends Jessica’s uncompromising stance from Elly’s scathing remarks and acknowledges the ‘elephant in the room’ – that not only are they ‘fearful’ of Jessica (as a child is with a parent), on some topics at least, Elly may be right… One can argue that in the characters of Elly and Jessica, they are delberately written as ‘extreme’/uncompromising because they are two sides of the same coin.

Brebeck said the following quotes, which have some bearing on the play.
i) “I’m actually interested in poor behaviour. I’m interested in what drives people to poor behaviour.”

ii) “There’s a thing that happens to Midwesterners – we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don’t know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn’t say. And that is not very East coast.”

One can argue that in the play one character is more ‘morally right’ than the other, depending on your point of view. However, regardless of the respective issues in the play, Elly’s adversarial traction loses steam when Jessica speaks to her in a relatively calm fashion. In fact, later on Elly finds it hard to be antagonistic to Jessica (even though she wants to) because Elly is being ‘killed with kindness’. Perhaps the civilised response to differences is something that Brebeck is hinting at– something that has been lacking on both sides of the Pond in recent times.

The actors in Sunday on the Rocks all play their respective roles with authenticity and like the characters in The White Lotus, while one may not always identify with them or even find some of their behaviour ‘likeable’, you truly believe that they believe in the power of their convictions.

© Michael Davis 2024

Sunday on the Rocks ran at the Bread & Roses Theatre from 22nd to 31st May.