In this all-too-familiar tale, Amy Irving (left) plays the high-strung matriarch of a dysfunctional family that goes to pot shortly before neurotic daughter Althea (Jessica Collins) is due to marry a painter, Sandy (Jeremy Shamos). (Joan Marcus)
For her off-Broadway debut as a playwright, omnipresent actress Zoe Kazan (“Angels in America,” “A Behanding in Spokane”) has gone out on a limb with an extravaganza in which a telepathic ninja takes over a small western town in anticipation of an alien invasion.
Nah, just kidding: “We Live Here” is a family drama in which an impending wedding churns up buried resentments and leads to a reckoning. It almost goes without saying that the upper-middle-class characters have arty professions, drop erudite references while sipping wine and are mildly neurotic.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with plays about dysfunctional clans. But we’ve seen a lot already, many of them very, very good. If you’re going to throw another one into the pot, you may want to avoid howlers such as a high-strung mother (Amy Irving) wailing at her grown, neurotic daughters, “Why do you want to hurt yourselves? Why?” during a climactic screamfest.
At least the answer to that question is easy: Althea (Jessica Collins) and Dinah (Betty Gilpin) want to hurt themselves because otherwise there would be no show. You may also add: because they have nothing better to do.
Dinah, 19, has come home from Juilliard for her older sister’s wedding to a good-natured painter, Sandy (Jeremy Shamos, an expert at playing nice guys who aren’t sappy). Dinah’s brought along her new boyfriend, Daniel (Oscar Isaac), and his presence activates the memory of a past tragedy involving Althea’s late twin, Andromeda.
Those names, by the way, can be blamed on Dad (Mark Blum), a classics professor.
“We Live Here” does have something to say about sisterly rivalries, and the difficulty of living and loving in a gifted person’s shadow — it may not be a coincidence that the author is the granddaughter of director Elia Kazan. At times, you can glimpse the play that could have been.
And then it’s back to clichés: a game of truth or dare, an allegory by Aristotle, another tragic accident and “we need to talk more” catharsis.
Both the cast and rising helmer Sam Gold (“Kin,” “Circle Mirror Transformation”) do the best they can. The men tend to fare a little better, maybe because their roles are less grating. Blum is particularly good as a father who shuts himself off from the rest of his family, and looks ill at ease whenever he’s on the spot — even if said spot involves talking about his work.
Overall though, it’s not enough to save this boiler-plate melodrama.
As a playwright, Kazan is a new voice. Too bad she’s singing the same old song.