Off-Broadway Review—Amy Berryman’s “Walden” with Emmy Rossum and Zoë Winters

Walden

Written by Amy Berryman; directed by Wendy White

Performances through November 24, 2024

Second Stage Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, New York, NY

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Rossum and Winters in Walden (photo: Joan Marcus)

Written and first staged during the pandemic, Amy Berryman’s Walden has the scent of lockdowns and quarantines in its dystopian story—set in an isolated cabin in an unidentified but identifiable near-future—of twin sisters, who are poles apart but also alike, whose rocky reunion occurs as human civilization seems to be in its final throes on earth.

Former NASA designer Stella (Emmy Rossum) lives with her fiancée, Bryan (Motell Foster, likably natural), in a remote cabin where they grow their own food, Stella makes her own wine and Bryan traps rabbits and shoots deer. Bryan is an E.A., or earth advocate, part of a burgeoning group militantly opposed to wasting billions on making the moon or Mars habitable instead of using that cash to help save our planet. (We hear ominous reports of tsunamis and climate refugees on Stella’s radio.) 

Then Stella’s twin sister Cassie (Zoë Winters) arrives, having just returned from spending a year working and living at the moon habitat. Since she was able to miraculously grow food from scratch on the moon, she has become a global hero. Cassie and Stella, both brilliant, have lived in the long shadow of their famous astronaut father (their mother died while giving birth), and when Cassie confesses why she’s come to visit, the sisters must wrestle with decisions that may well decide the future of the human race. 

A play that’s titled Walden—which is also explained heavyhandedly in the dialogue—might be short on subtlety, but what Berryman has written is actually a touching examination of complicated family dynamics set off by an ongoing global cataclysm. Although she approaches contrivance by setting up a messy love triangle—one too many times does Stella allow Cassie and Bryan to be conveniently alone—it’s a tiny lapse that’s not followed through, thankfully. 

It also helps that Rossum and Winters are superb as the twins, providing more humanity, complexity and even humor to the sisters’ relationship than I’d think even Berryman might have expected. In their final conversation, which takes place after some time has passed, they discuss their current paths: Cassie is in training for the mission that will take her to Mars for the rest of her life and Stella announces that she is pregnant with Bryan’s child. It’s the perfect distillation of how the play dovetails the expansive with the intimate, beautifully written and acted. 

Directed for maximum emotional effect by Whitney White, Walden is also propped up by Matt Saunders’ set, Adam Honoré’s lighting and Lee Kinney’s sound design, which all contribute to the alternately ominous and reassuring atmosphere.