After a hiatus of six years, Richard Nelson’s Apple family has returned. We last saw them on Zoom with three plays in 2020 during the COVID pandemic and Nelson had stated there would be no more Apple plays. Fortunately, he has written an update to take us into the Trump era. The new work We’ll See takes place on Nov. 3, 2026 and the four Apple siblings and the girlfriend of the only brother have gathered together in the tiny upstate New York village of Rhinebeck to share political observations, catch up on family news and offer a snapshot of our divided country. Like Nelson’s previous plays in this cycle of works which followed the Apples, the Gabriels and the Michaels through upheavals both personal and societal, the evening features little in the way of plot or conflict, is full of small, piercing moments and endeavors to show how large events effect everyday lives with quiet insight, compassion, and telling details. It’s like a visit with old friends and an unsparing survey of our fractured union.
Jay O. Sanders, Sally Murphy,
Laila Robbins and Maryann Plunkett in
We'll See.
Credit: Joan Marcus
Nelson began this cycle of plays known as the Rhinebeck Panorama in 2010 (all presented at the Public Theater except for the Zoom plays). Most of the same actors have returned, delivering the same understated, yet deeply subtextual performances, staged by Nelson with quiet reserve. The five characters are nervously eating a meal on the night of the midterms. They have vowed not to check their phones for election results or to mention the name of a certain occupant of the White House who they regard as the source of their country’s perhaps irreversible downward slide. “So much seems so inhuman these days,” they complain.
Though Trump’s name is never specifically uttered, his perverse influence on the national psyche hovers over the conversations like a dark cloud. Barbara (Maryann Plunkett, superb at conveying repressed rage and frustration) relates the fear of ICE experienced by her ESL students at the classes she voluntarily teaches. She is also bitter over her forced retirement as a public school teacher for an incident with a student fueled by polarizing political rancor. Jane (vibrant Sally Murphy) discusses her difficult decision not to vote since she sees such public participation as futile, as well as her strained relationship with her boyfriend and his adult daughter (they all are living together in a cramped Brooklyn apartment). Marian (slyly subtle Laila Robbins), also a teacher, has had to sell her home and move in with Barbara since she could not afford property taxes.
