Event

Family (de) Values

WASP is a dark comedy about a family in the 1950s struggling to achieve the stereotypical perfection and harmony of the time, and failing. Instead, the characters are drowning in their own self-deprecation and are unsure of anything, even their own identities. They therefore turn to others, from voices in their heads to aliens from cartoons, for the answers they need, and even there cannot find them.

Set in a rundown house somewhere in America, REFUGE tells the darkly funny and touching story of a young woman, Amy, forced to care for her younger brother and sister after her parents have abandoned the family and fled to Florida for a vacation from which they will never return. The siblings are in great need of care: Nat, a brain tumor survivor, is stuttering and barely able to move; and Becca is an Ecstasy-popping needy child. In a desperate attempt at connection, Amy brings home a drifter, Sam, for a one-night stand. But Sam is so lonely and lost that once he encounters this unusual family's bonds of loyalty, he sees them as his only refuge. REFUGE is a profoundly honest and original look at four young lives, lost and unsure of what's ahead, seeking a safe place but uncertain of what safety means. The only refuge in sight may be in the distinctively heartbreaking and brutally funny language of the world Ms. Goldberg's characters inhabit.