“Grangeville” delivers a masterclass in acting
Jeff LeBeau and Tim Cummings star as estranged half brothers Jerry and Arnold in Samuel D. Hunter’s “Grangeville,” now playing at the Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center in Santa Monica. (Photo by Amelia Mulkey Anderson)
The best play of 2026 may be the West Coast premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s award-nominated “Grangeville,” now running at the Ruskin Theatre. It could very well be the best production of 2026, and very possibly the best acting and directing of 2026. It is a must-see for audiences. Very definitely an actor’s play.
“Grangeville” deserves an extended run.
I saw Hunter’s West Coast premiere of “The Whale” in a powerful production at South Coast Repertory in 2013. I recognized then how important Hunter is as a playwright.
“The Whale” was adapted into a 2022 feature film, with Brendan Fraser winning multiple best actor honors, including the Oscar, SAG and Critics Choice awards.
There are shades of a contemporary Sam Shepard throughout Hunter’s work.
In “Grangeville,” we have two actors on what appears to be an empty stage with a couple of acting blocks. Jeff LeBeau, as Jerry, and Tim Cummings, as Arnold, are so tightly connected as actors that they command our attention with every piece of dialogue, body language and gesture as the story of these multilayered characters unfolds. They are totally committed, honest and believable in this intimate space. It is a masterclass in acting.
“Grangeville” is masterfully directed by John P. Flynn, an icon of the Los Angeles theatre scene. In a conversation in the lobby after the performance, LeBeau smiled and pointed to Flynn, saying, “Obi-Wan,” referring to Flynn as a Jedi master of directing actors.
After a career in television, Flynn chose to return to theatre. In 2008, he was the founding artistic director of Rogue Machine Theatre. He recently chose to step down from that position.
I feel a kinship with Flynn, who is a champion of new plays and intimate theatres in Los Angeles. I’ll take Los Angeles theatre any day over New York theatre.
Flynn is highly respected in the Los Angeles theatre community for his sensitive and subtle direction of Hunter’s character-driven plays, including “A Bright New Boise,” “A Permanent Image” and “Pocatello” at Rogue Machine.
Without any costume changes, LeBeau and Cummings also seamlessly transform into two totally convincing other characters. Cummings, with a slight change in mannerisms, transforms into Jerry’s ex-wife. LeBeau transforms not only physically but with an authentic Dutch accent into Bram, Arnold’s husband in Holland.
Jerry and Arnold are two estranged half brothers who grew up in rural Grangeville, Idaho. They share a complicated past.
They were raised by an abusive father and an alcoholic, abusive mother. Arnold, who is gay, was not only a victim of that abuse but also of Jerry, who beat him regularly.
Twenty years ago, Arnold escaped to Holland and built a new life with his husband, Bram. They have moved from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, where Bram, an artist turned arts administrator, has a career in a museum and soon will be promoted to director. Arnold’s initial success as an artist was based on his iconic dioramas of Grangeville. The Dairy Queen. The tattoo parlor. The pawn shop. His career is faltering as his move into abstract painting has not been met with the same enthusiasm. He’s lost his inspiration. Arnold realizes, “I was a fascination with these Europeans. Making fun of America.”
His marriage with Bram is strained. Bram accidentally blurts out that he sees Arnold’s new work as a bleak “modern depressing meditation.” Arnold wants to move back to Amsterdam and get out of this city that was bombed out in World War II and rebuilt with shipping containers and “Brutalist McDonalds.”
From the first line, “What time is it over there?” Jeff LeBeau captures the multilayered Jerry, who isn’t doing too well himself. He’s been the longtime caregiver for their ailing mother. His wife, Stacy, has left him and Grangeville for a new beginning. He’s living in the mother’s old trailer. He took a walk down the road with a gun to commit suicide, and his son found the suicide note he left for Stacy. He says he would never have done it, but he’s in therapy and struggling with mental health issues.
Perhaps these phone calls across the ocean are part of the therapy. At first, it’s dealing with one medical bill. Then other financial issues surface.
At one point, Cummings’ Arnold becomes very still. And then it comes. “I don’t like you. Jerry. I can’t do this…you and me.”
When the mother dies, Jerry discovers that he has been named the health proxy and Arnold the executor of the will.
Another phone call. They are now bonded together to complete their tasks. In a bumbling way, LeBeau’s very masculine Jerry wants to make amends to his brother for the cruel things he did to him when they were younger.
When Arnold discovers Jerry has a therapist, he feels violated all over again. “You talk to her about me? When you say the stuff I did … by picking on me… do you mean beating the …. out of me? I’m out of it. I’m done. I’m not doing this.”
At another point, we discover that, in the past, a letter of acceptance from a fancy art school in New York addressed to Arnold arrived in the mail. Jerry opened it. By this time, the family and Grangeville had figured out Arnold was artsy and gay. Jerry thought about the whole AIDS crisis that was raging. Jerry wrote back as Arnold and respectfully declined the acceptance. Arnold has never discovered this.
Just the same, Jerry, in a beautifully restrained manner, reaches out again to Arnold. “I’d like to try again. To move forward.”
Arnold learns that Jerry’s son, Tom, has come out as gay and has been accepted not only by the family but by Grangeville itself. Times are different.
Jerry discovers that their mother hasn’t paid rent on her trailer park space for years. The owner of the space is a family friend who has just let her slide.
Arnold is concerned that he could come after them for back payments. According to Jerry, their mother claimed to have found a rare sculpture by Alberto Giacometti at a flea market that should be worth quite a bit of money.
Jerry tries to sell the trailer, but it isn’t worth anything, and they are going to have to pay to haul it off to the dump.
Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s striking, evolving set design begins as a black wall, which could be blank Brutalism or an artist’s palette with blotches of black paint here and there. What could have been an orange-colored window evolves into the top of a weathered old trailer door, complete with wooden pallets serving as steps. Her costumes are perfect. Dan Weingarten’s focused lighting frames it in what becomes theatrical magic as the wall is pulled back to reveal the inside of the mother’s old trailer, which could have been one of Arnold’s dioramas.
Reunited in Grangeville, Jerry and Arnold enter the trailer, sorting through things to keep, throw away and discovering memories, including those they remember differently. They sift through the debris of their tortured past while still filled with their pent-up childhood trauma. Arnold learns that the Dairy Queen has closed. Finally, Jerry tells Arnold to hit him to settle past grievances. They scuffle in the very tight trailer space and crash into the aforementioned sculpture, breaking it. Taking one look, Arnold blurts out, “That is not a Giacometti.”
They find a pack of UNO playing cards. Both have different memories of when they used to play it. In the final tableau of the play, Jerry lets Arnold win the game.
That game is a ritual. It connects them to their past. It is a truce and a pathway toward forgiveness. A realistic and tender resolution after the two men reconnect over the death of their mother and struggle with the decision of reconciliation.
Tim Cummings is the recipient of three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards and has collaborated with Flynn at Rogue Machine Theatre. He has a BFA in acting from NYU and an MFA in writing from Antioch. He is the author of a number of coming-of-age novels and teaches creative writing in the UCLA Writers Program.
Jeff LeBeau is highly regarded for his performances across various renowned theater ensembles. He is the recipient of LA Weekly/Stage Raw’s 2026 Best Actor Award. LeBeau is an alumnus of CalArts and a member of Pacific Resident Theatre, Rogue Machine and The Road Theatre.
John P. Flynn is the recipient of the LA Weekly Career Achievement Award in 2012, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s Gordon Davidson Award for 2024-25, the Playwrights’ Arena Lee Melville Award in 2025, and the first-ever Stage Raw Theatre Award, “Passing the Torch,” in 2026, which he shared with Gary Grossman of Skylight Theatre.
Where: Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center, 2800 Airport Ave., Santa Monica
When: 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Check for exceptions. Ends July 12.
Tickets: Start at $25
Contact: ruskingrouptheatre.com and (310) 397-3244