Ryan Tasker as Jacob in Word for Word’s “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash.”
Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word
Sometimes, in the theater, your silence isn’t enough.
Breath, pulse, even cellular motion must all be stifled. Maybe then, whatever this suspense and dread is leading to — a jump scare? something worse? — might hurt less.
In “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash,” which opened Saturday, Oct. 11, at Z Below, such is the clutch-and-release experience of the third, final and best short story — the one that gives this Word for Word’s production its title.
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Paul Finocchiaro, left, and Ryan Tasker in “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash.”
Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word
As Depression-era farmer Jacob (Ryan Tasker) finally approaches his henhouse to see which creature has been pilfering his eggs, he’s not merely solving a mystery. We’re seeing, in real time, how soft men become hard and how relentless the world has to be to snuff out one last, stubborn spark of humanity.
Rash’s prose — which, true to its name, Word for Word preserves in its entirety, every “he said” and all — eschews writerly flourishes. Every word is there because it needs to be, like the work-smoothed handles of a poor farmer’s tools. And Word for Word’s production wields them with unfussy expertise.
Delia MacDougall in “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash.”
Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word
In that varmint-confronting moment, the inborn authority of Paul Finocchiaro as a part-narrator, part-sidekick helps Tasker’s Jacob zero in on the henhouse like they’re snipers at war. As Jacob’s wife Edna, Delia MacDougall wrenches words out of her chest like she resents the unnecessary expenditure of energy and emotion.
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Then there’s Tasker himself, who, in the moment his character must toughen up, winds up looking like a little boy blubbering on a playground. He does what he must, but it’s like he’s mourning his and his world’s lost innocence at the same time.
Ryan Tasker, from left, John Flanagan and Paul Finocchiaro in “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash.”
Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word
If the show’s first story, “The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth” directed by Jim Cave, doesn’t reach these heights, both for more tentative acting and shallower writing, it’s hard to resist its premise: A carpenter (Molly Rebekka Benson) gets tasked with building her ex-husband (John Flagan) a cross so he and some buddies can pose as Jesus and his neighboring crucified thieves on Easter. The spectacle of three men in loincloths-qua-diapers makes you mostly forgive an overfondness for tying up every possible plot thread in a neat bow.
“Sad Man in the Sky” is almost as good as “Hard Times” (both directed by Amy Kossow). Here, a helicopter tour pilot (Finocchiaro) prejudges a homeless-looking customer (Joel Mullennix) who wants to fly for an extraordinary but secret reason. Kossow stages the helicopter with ingenious simplicity. When the ensemble pushes the seats around and a structure below pops onstage as a dollhouse, it suddenly looks like they’re flying.
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Paul Finocchiaro, left, and Joel Mullennix in “Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash.”
Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word
Where “Hard Times” shows how human goodness can be stamped out, this one allows humanity to fully flower, and it all shines in Mullennix’s countenance. For much of the story he’s a cipher, until all of a sudden it’s almost like his eyes change color, heavenly light beaming out through them. It’s not just the mystery revelation but the story’s unspoilable kicker that keeps filling you up and wringing you out again afterwards.
“Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash”: Written by Ron Rash. Directed by Jim Cave and Amy Kossow. Through Nov. 2. Two hours, 10 minutes. $45-$70. Z Below, 470 Florida St., S.F. 415-626-0453. www.zspace.org
The specifics you must see for yourself, but I’ll say this: We have such bounty, and we could spend it on miracles. Instead, we spend it on war.