This Bold House: 'Crumble'

Map It:  Eastern Market 

REMEMBER HOW "Toy Story" made kids around the world afraid that their playthings were somehow self-aware?

Adults may leave Catalyst Theater's "Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)," with a similar feeling about their abodes, thanks to Jason Stiles' creaking and at times menacing personification of a decaying apartment.

Penned by Sheila Callaghan and directed by Shirley Serotsky -- who teamed last year in "We Are Not These Hands" -- the play focuses on the relationship between a widowed chef and her troubled daughter. Mom (Elizabeth Richards) and Janice (Casie Platt) live together in a dilapidated apartment that lacks heat and is falling apart, thanks to Mom's inaction.

Twentysomething Platt masters the sulking silences and raging rants of 11-year-old Janice, who hosts bleach tea parties for her stuffed animals and raging fights among her Barbies. Her terminally anxious mother prepares complex feasts -- which Janice won't eat -- and seeks the fruitless advice of sister Barbara (Kathleen Akerley), who is childless except for 57 cats.

Janice and her mother both fantasize, about Justin Timberlake and Harrison Ford (in Indy character), respectively. Eric Messner plays both these characters, plus the specter of the deceased father and husband.

Meanwhile, the Apartment -- clad in a shoddy old tux and lurching about with a piece of pipe for a cane -- reminisces about its days as a mansion, even longing for its time as a brothel. The Apartment would kill for a little TLC and, when he sees Janice's plan for setting things right, takes measures to save himself.

» Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 7th St. SE; through June 7; $10; 800-494-8497; catalysttheater.org. (Eastern Market)

Written by Express contributor Erin Trompeter
Photo by Joe Shymanski