HALF AND HALF
In Half and Half, author James Sherman explores marriages past and present in two related acts. In the first act, set at breakfast on the first Earth Day in 1970, the bread-winner husband (Stewart) reads the newspaper as his homemaker wife (Susan) dutifully fries the eggs. Their daughter (Lucy) readies herself for a school day in typical teen fashion. However, we notice a subtle but growing undercurrent of activism in the two females. In act two, a generation later, again at breakfast, a career-driven wife (Lucy, now an attorney) reads the paper, and her stay-at-home husband (Jeremy) prepares a frittata. The same three actors portray the age-appropriate roles in each act, creating an interesting parallel between the two generations, making for a very poignant comedy about marriage. With a unique comic insight, the show looks at how husbands and wives accept and reject their roles, and how their roles might just be cycling back.