Play hits funny bone until it hurts

Pain and sadness are integral to comedy, and, according to Larry Silverberg, Gina Gionfriddo's "Becky Shaw" exemplifies this yin-yang madness. Silverberg is directing the upcoming freeFall production of this 2008 play.

"I can't look at it as a comedy because the things that happen are so severe and serious. Suzanna's father has just died and she's grieving. She's treated roughly by her stepbrother and mother. There are huge mistakes that the characters make. But the truth is that every comedy comes out of deep suffering. The dialogue [in this play] makes it hysterically funny," Silverberg says.

As the play's title character, Becky has endured a series of terrible relationships, both familial and not. Her emotional fragility is nurtured with a dead-end job, unstable finances, no family and no friends. She's alone in the world — until she meets Max, Suzanna's stepbrother.

Suzanna and her husband, Andrew, set up a blind date for Becky and Max. What follows is a series of unfortunate events that would throw Lemony Snicket off balance.

"This play is a deep exploration of what is family, what does it provide, what are the mistakes we make, what are the lies we tell others and how do we unmask ourselves to people we love while retaining humanity in the midst of a difficult situation," said Silverberg.

Colossal blunders are made over the course of the play, but Silverberg was mum about what those are. He didn't want to give too much away.

What he did share was that Becky says too much, drinks too much and gets involved with the wrong people. She's out of control because she feels desperate. So she does what most people do when they're desperate: they latch on to someone else.

"Max becomes the rope," Silverberg said.

Silverberg's biggest challenge, other than handling so much emotional baggage on stage, is the set design. The play is technically demanding because the second act has several scene changes. FreeFall's artistic director, Eric Davis, is designing video projections to ferry the audience to the different locations.

Another of Silverberg's artistic choices is adding food preparation to scenes, drawing from his own background to lend authenticity to the production.

"Conversations always happened in the kitchen when I grew up. I've added a lot of cooking preparation and food being served. I changed the location in the last scene to the kitchen," Silverberg said.