Review: The American dream takes a bashing in ‘Detroit’

Fireworks explode in the psyche instead of in the sky in “Detroit.”

In this sizzling satire by Lisa D’Amour (“Airline Highway”), the American dream — the realm of a middle-class backyard complete with beer and barbecue and a welcome gift for new neighbors — goes up in flames. Smoothly directed by Josh Costello in its regional premiere at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, this blistering 100-minute comedy of manners captures the way a volatile economy implodes the soul from within.

The veneer of old-fashioned American values is quickly ripped apart during a series of cookouts from hell, as it becomes harder and harder for two couples to keep up appearances in this Pulitzer-nominated satire of suburban bliss.

Throwing some steaks on the grill and popping open some cold ones is a way to ease the tension for brightly nervous Mary (the always insightful Amy Resnick) and her hubby, Ben (Jeff Garrett), who are coping with the kinks of their carefully plotted career paths. She’s a paralegal supporting them both, because he got laid off from his job as a loan officer. He is now numbing himself with self-help jargon instead of pursuing his plan B as an online financial adviser.

Mary is still all smiles, but her shiny, happy facade is as brittle as her marriage. Resnick nails the panic seething just below the surface of Mary’s graciousness. Money is tight, so they bought their cozy patio umbrella and deck chairs from a clearance store, but they are managing to maintain their lifestyle. They haven’t had to drain their savings. Yet.

If they are teetering precariously on the brink, that’s the very place tearful Sharon (Luisa Frasconi) and furtive Kenny (Patrick Kelly Jones) have long called home. These two work menial jobs (she toils at a call center, he at a warehouse). They grew up needy, met in rehab and never expect to make it past the stage of eating ramen for dinner every night. They are quite out-of-place amid the placid sameness of the housing tract, hanging sheets in the windows to make up for not having curtains.

Members of the underclass, they do not put much stock in working hard and making good in a world of greed and corruption. Frasconi manages to radiate sweetness and danger at the same time, and Jones gives Kenny a jittery volatility that laces the narrative with suspense.

Mary and Ben can’t help wanting to help their new neighbors, who are much younger and more carefree. They can’t resist being partly rejuvenated by their exuberance. The appeal to bond with their new BFFs is so strong, they miss the fact that there is something sketchy about Sharon and Kenny.

For Sharon, staving off her craving for crack is the ultimate victory. She longs for her pipe just as Mary and Ben cling to their pipe dream of financial security and a comfortable retirement.

The only way to beat back the anxiety, the fear of falling forever behind, is to escape into primal pleasures, a strategy that leads to the play’s terrifyingly funny climax of dancing, drink and fire. In a land of repression and denial, anarchy can be mistaken for catharsis.

Impulse control soon gives way to drunken revels and bonfires in this biting commentary about a nation of go-getters terrified of sliding down the fast track to ruin.

In the play’s tender coda, an elderly man (deftly played by Jones) wistfully recalls a time when all of the folks in the town knew their neighbors, when kids played outside all day and parents mingled by night at a bucolic pavilion. He recalls feeling like they were all in it together.

“It is such a perfect memory,” he says, dreamily, “I wonder if it’s real.”

Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772. Read her at www.mercurynews.com/karen-dsouza, and follow her at Twitter.com/karendsouza4.