Fringe Review

“Home Town” is a play written by Ashley Nicole Audette about a family grappling with the loss of their youngest daughter. The play focuses on Rose who has returned to her hometown to attend the funeral.  While drowning her sorrows at the local bar she runs into her first boyfriend, who is determined to confront Rose about their past.  This is a powerful story of family coming together to overcome their grief, however melodramatics in the script overpower any nuance in many of the performances. Strange casting decisions have a very young woman in a relationship with an older man that definitely took me out of the moment.  The staging was also lackluster and consisted of simple chairs and tables, leaving many moments feeling ungrounded in an ambiguous space – a staged reading may have made more sense given the circumstance. There is a lot of potential in this piece, but this felt like a classic case of a playwright directing their own work.