Dimly Perceived Threats to the System
THE STORY: Maryls Hauser is a management consultant who can’t seem to manage the slightest problem at home. Her husband, Josh, is developing a film about the American Family in Crisis—while slipping into an affair with his own producer. Their comically dysfunctional daughter, Christine, torments her school therapist—when she’s not channeling the spirit of her grandmother. Reality and fantasy overlap with hilarious results as this unforgettable family attempts to survive the nineties.
“Here’s a play whose point about fractured families goes to the heart, mind—and ears.” —Washington Post.
“…an end-of-the millennium comedy about a family on the verge of a nervous breakdown…Trenchant and hilarious…” —Baltimore Sun.
“…Jon Klein’s very dark, very trenchant and very funny comedy about family life in the 1990s…[is] a wonderfully quirky and novel look at the American family’s disarray and dissolution…Klein’s tone…is steeped in dark humor, inviting us to laugh at despair even as we recognize the shards of truth running through it…What makes THREATS so thoroughly enjoyable are the flights of fancy, desire and fear that…envelop its characters.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune.
