Rift, or White Lies at InterAct Theatre Company

            Two brothers- a good one and a bad one. One is a liberal English teacher; the other is a convicted murderer and a member of a white supremacist gang in prison. Estranged for many years, circumstances have brought them together as they try to navigate some sort of connection. Do they have any common ground? Can you be friends with a brother… anyone whose beliefs you despise.

            “Rift, or White Lies” at InterAct Theatre, is based upon playwright Gabriel Jason Dean’s actual struggles with his life in dealing with his incarcerated brother, in prison for murder. In the play, they are nameless. The program lists the two brothers as Inside Brother and Outside Brother, referring to the inside and outside of the prison. The two actors that portray the brothers alternate roles each night. I saw Jared McLenigan as the Inside Brother and Matteo Scammell as the Outside Brother. Both were remarkable, and I understand when they reverse roles, they are equally powerful, though it is a different experience for the audience.This role switching was suggested by the playwright, and I can’t imagine a better director than Seth Rozin to have guided this powerful story.

            The play begins with a prison visit after no contact for four years since the murder

separated the brothers. The set is just a table and two chairs. They talk. We come to realize that they are in fact, half-brothers, a year apart in age, with the same father. The younger one is finishing his college degree.

            After that first meeting, they don’t meet again for 12 more years. Outside Brother has become a respected teacher and author. Inside Brother is still coarse, What was hinted at at first becomes an ominous cloud as we learn of the molestation of the boys by an uncle when they were very young. It led to drunken binges at first, and then a failed marriage because Outside Brother didn’t want to have kids. We can read into his psyche for the reasons.

            Inside Brother has become a leader in a white supremacist prison gang. He hates people of color and gay men. What brought him to this? Can we understand his phobias? Why did he kill a man? Is it because he is afraid of what men might do to him, so he becomes as bad or worse than them? A traumatic childhood creates different scenarios for different people.

            The next scene is five years later, and it is a tele visit. We see that there is some understanding between the two as Outside Brother agrees to follow a physical routine of Inside Brother in exchange for Inside Brother’s reading books by Black authors- in particular James Baldwin.

            The rift between the two appears to be narrowing, but Inside Brother lies to his brother and that threatens any bonding. Will they ever connect? Will they ever change?

            McLenigan and Scammell were outstanding in portraying the two brothers who wound up on different paths. I regret that I cannot not see it again with their reversing roles. There is a very subtle statement there, reminding us how life’s circumstances effect who we are, and we can just as easily be our brother.

            While it was a very talky play, I was fascinated by the interaction of the two as more and more gets revealed. In fact, I wanted to better understand their characters. I never understood why Inside Brother was the racist that he was. I was confused by the father’s relationship with the mother of Inside Brother and with his own sons. I wanted more. I also wanted to learn more about the relationship of the boys as they were growing up. Dean’s story is brutally real, and though I wish it had more clarity, this unusual play is still a commanding work that needs to be seen.

“Rift, or White Lies” by Gabriel Jason Dean at InterAct Theatre Company at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, 215-56 8-8079 interacttheatre.org  Thru April 27, 2025

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