It’s winter in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Siblings Jake (Seth Numrich), Ruby (Libby Woodridge) and Jer (Noah Galvin) have come to the woods to bury their baby brother, dead from neglect. Ruby cradles the body in a black plastic garbage bag and complains about her lot in life. Jer watches, listens, reacts, and picks at the landscape. Jake digs and argues, sometimes explosively, with his sullen sister. The family has been reduced to living in a trailer with their mother and stepfather, supported by church donations and welfare. It’s very cold; the kids are underdressed. They’re also frustrated, hurt, angry and in despair. Eventually mom Julie (Kathryn Erbe) joins them.

If I didn’t tell you this much, there’d be nothing to write. Yosemite is like watching syrup poured. Dialogue is repetitive, silences irritating rather than contributory. I could find neither rhyme nor reason. A scene is set. Something happens…after a painfully, long wait. It’s already been telegraphed. Black-out.

Kathryn Erbe (mother Julie) is credibly in anguish. Her wrenching restraint is effective. She has no dialogue into which to sink her teeth however, minimizing impact. Libby Woodbridge (Ruby) has even less with which to work. Through no fault of her own, she’s barely present. Seth Numrich (Jake) does a yeoman like job with the sporadic outbursts he’s allotted. Noah Galvin (Jer), who has the least to say, is completely focused, reacting and retreating to his character’s own dreamy state of mind.

Director Pedro Pascal keeps action to a minimum in service of a plotline that’s not inherent. Digging is often the most interesting thing going on. No kidding. There are rocks hit and extricated, mounds of dirt, and great apparent effort. One wishes him better material with which to work.

Raul Abrego (Scenic Design) executed ambitious and evocative woods with both foreground and background of interest. Tristan Raines’s Costume Design was appropriately dirty and worn but matched a bit too well for garments donated or pulled from a Goodwill bin. Janie Bullard’s Sound Design was very good, from winds to indications of indigenous creatures.

Photos by Sandra Coudert:
1.Seth Numrich, Noah Galvin, Libby Woodbridge
2.Noah Galvin, Kathryn Erbe, Libby Woodbridge

Yosemite By David Talbott
Directed by Pedro Pascal
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Place
Through February 26, 2012