Phillyist Reviews... Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree

We haven't gotten around to telling you about the Philadelphia New Play Festival yet (that post is forthcoming), but on Friday, I had the opportunity to see one of the featured plays (most of them open before the festival officially begins), The Arden's Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree.

Dex and Julie tells the tale of two high school sweethearts who reunite twenty years later at their alma mater. Julie (Jennifer Childs) is a professor there, and Dex (John Lumia) is a high-powered New York City lawyer who's been asked to come back for a homecoming fundraiser. Although the two haven't seen each other in two decades, it seems at first as though no time has passed. But it soon becomes clear that things have changed: old friends have died, old professors have come out, and between the two of them, Dex and Julie can count three marriages, none of which were to each other.

Bruce Graham's script is solid. It's better than solid. It's powerful. It's touching. Over the course of two hours, you could hear everything from belly laughs to sobs emanating from the audience members. The show is full of pop culture references targeted at Baby Boomers, though they're easy enough for younger audience members to understand, but beyond that, what really stands out is how truly colloquial the dialogue is. Halfway though the show, I realized it felt far more like I was spying on a very private, intimate, and ultimately bittersweet, reunion, than like I was watching a play. This effect is aided immensely by James Wolk's phenomenal set: it looked like a real house, not an assortment of freestanding walls and fake windows and doors. The kitchen even worked. (On that note, though: don't go to the show on an empty stomach. Trust me.)

Childs and Lumia, both of whom I have had the pleasure of seeing in other area performances, embody the characters they play to such an extent that I was able to forget those prior productions (a true feat for Childs, whom I last saw, and loved, as a dancer, not an actress, in Suburban Love Songs). With the excellent James J. Christy at their helm, the cast of two played people, not characters. Which is probably why the piece's ultimate resolution—or lack thereof—ensured that there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

John Lumia stars as Dex and Jennifer Childs stars as Julie in Arden Theatre Company’s world premiere production of Dex and Julie Sittin’ in a Tree. Photo by Mark Garvin.