“The Salvagers” Finds Hope In The Cold

When we first meet Boseman Salvage Junior (Taylor A. Blackman), he’s shoveling snow, and turns it into a dance. The labor he’s doing can’t take away from the grace with which he’s doing it. As he continues to move, in more abstract ways, the dance becomes a strong expression of character, a portrait of a young man with more within him than he knows how to contain. In that context, his act of shoveling becomes meaningful, given the mountain of snow that hovers in the background for his dance — and for the entire play. No matter how much he shovels in that moment, can he make a dent in it? But he works, and dances, anyway.

That first overture-like scene sets the tone for The Salvagers, written by Harrison David Rivers and directed by Mikael Burke, celebrating its world premiere with a run at Yale Repertory Theatre through Dec. 16. This often funny and, in the end, deeply humane play explores the complex dynamics of a small family — Boseman Salvage Senior (Julian Elijah Martinez), Nedra Salvage (Toni Martin), and their son Junior — who, by the time we meet them, have already been working hard to heal from the hurts in their complex shared history. The Salvagers traces the emotional miles they have traveled and the distance they have yet to go by focusing on a turning point in their relationships, after which they cannot be the same.

Boseman Senior is a locksmith in Chicago who, when we meet him, is already divorced from Nedra. The split is far enough in the past that the initial sharp acrimony is behind them; they at least are on somewhat guarded speaking terms. They are united in wanting to support their son, Boseman Junior, now in his early 20s, who has returned to Chicago from New York and is working in a restaurant while hustling to find work as an actor. It’s rough going. Senior and Junior struggle to connect, even as they live in the same apartment. Junior gets along better with Nedra, but for some reason isn’t living with her. Everyone is trying, but fuses are short. We learn early that Senior and Nedra had Junior when they themselves were still teenagers. It implies a difficult upbringing for Junior. But there’s something more than that going on, too. Maybe a couple somethings.

Into this situation enter two outsiders. Elinor DeWitt (McKenzie Chinn) is a substitute teacher who meets Boseman Senior when she locks herself out of her place, and takes a liking to him. Paulina Kenston (Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew) is working in the same restaurant as Boseman Junior, and they connect over a mutual love-hate relationship with cigarettes while on break. As these romantic relationships grow, they force changes within the Salvage family. Certain tensions flare, from manageable to unmanageable. Certain truths about the past come into the light that can’t be ignored. And each of the Salvages must in some ways face themselves, coming to terms with who they used to be, who they are now, and who they want to be.

Under Mikael Burke’s kinetic direction, each of the actors dives into their roles with gusto. Martinez plays Boseman Senior as a man who knows that, for a number of reasons, he doesn’t have the authority he needs to have in order to be the kind of father he wants to be for Junior — and doesn’t completely know what to do with the complicated emotions he feels. Likewise, Martin makes clear that Nedra’s affection for Junior is quite real, but she’s trying too hard, overcompensating for something, and doles out, in pieces over time, what that might be. Chinn charms as the very forward and disarming Elinor; she shows us that Elinor’s way of living — unabashedly truthful — is coming from a deeply genuine place. Bartholomew likewise gives Paulina an easygoing yet perceptive demeanor that is immediately engaging and frequently funny.

Standing (and sometimes dancing) at the center of the play, however, is Boseman Junior, a complex character that is difficult to play sympathetically. He’s a 20-something wrestling with a kind of arrested development; prickly, prone to anger, unsure what to do with his changing perceptions of his parents, he lapses sometimes back into the teen dynamic that once defined him. But Blackman plays him just right. We understand Junior not simply as immature, but struggling, and Blackman also gives us enough of the grown-up he’s becoming to understand what Paulina sees in him. The physicality Blackman gives him helps a lot. Even when not overtly dancing — which Blackman does beautifully — Junior stalks the stage like a cat, lithe, vibrating with energy, ready to explode. It’s a fully embodied performance, raw yet nuanced, and it’s mesmerizing to watch.

The Salvagers isn’t a flawless play. It’s possible that Rivers has stacked his characters with one or two too many problems. More issues are raised than the characters or the play really have time to deal with properly, which is on a certain level realistic and admirable for that, but it also leaves a few big threads dangling. And while Rivers uses some theater devices deftly — the brief but moving dance sequences, a few scenes in which couples on either side of the stage act out their respective dramas simultaneously — a fourth-wall-breaking scene toward the end of the plays offers useful explanation for what’s happening but comes across as having been executed the way that it has because the production couldn’t quite figure out how to dramatize it effectively.

But these problems are few and fleeting. For much of The Salvagers, Rivers writes his characters with compassion and a refreshing joy for complexity. He gives each character the space for us to understand that each of them is acting from a place of wanting to improve the situation they’re in for everyone, even if they don’t always know how to do it. As the drama among the Salvages comes to a peak, we sympathize with them all, as people trying to, well, salvage what they can from a difficult past, and maybe build something better from the pieces. The note of bruised hope at the end of The Salvagers feels well earned, as does its quiet pitch for empathy, especially for the ones we know the best, for all their flaws, and hold the closest.

The Salvagers runs at Yale Repertory Theater, 1120 Chapel St., through Dec. 16. Visit the theater’s website for tickets and more information.