A tale of roses and thorns in 'We Had A World' at the Huntington

It’s heartbreaking when the carefully constructed persona of the one we love crumbles.

This holds true for Joshua, whose life is truly shaken when he realizes his nana, Renee, isn't as sweet an elder as he once thought. Joshua is the lead character in the Huntington Theatre’s production of “We Had a World.” Keira Fromm directs the autobiographical play by Joshua Harmon.

The narrative chiefly centers on Joshua's mother Ellen and his grandmother Renee. Joshua (portrayed by Will Conard) adored Renee and he credits her with nurturing his love of the arts. Many of the family’s issues stem from Renee’s alcoholism and how it shaped Ellen’s (Eva Kaminsky) childhood. It strained the relationship between the two women and made their interactions prickly. Other family members — Ellen’s siblings and dad — are mentioned but unseen. There are fault lines in the family that some are not willing to cross.

Families can be complicated. And Harmon’s is no different. His mom and grandmother don’t get along. His aunt and his mom can’t be in the same room. And his grandmother misses many life events: graduations, performances, funerals and the like, because she’s prone to drink. But even though Renee is painted as the wretched alcoholic antagonist, her character — a wonderfully charismatic Amy Resnick — stole the show. Resnick also starred in Huntington's 2023 production of Harmon’s “Prayer for the French Republic.”

Renee was raised in New York, but she speaks in a British accent as though she’d been raised across the pond. She delights in all of life’s beauty. She dresses elegantly, and takes a young Joshua to the theater and to countless art exhibitions. At one point, she intends to take him to see the Blue Man Group, but misses it because, well, she got drunk.

Resnick is delightful to watch, but at times, the play overall is unwieldy and choppy in its current form. It feels like a series of mini-vignettes mixed with narration. Harmon wrote the play during the pandemic, using secret recordings to piece the story together. His grandmother did grant him permission to write about her. She only asked that it be as “bitter and vitriolic as possible.”

It is, in fact, full of bitterness, but feels like patchwork, loosely stitching together the past and giving the audience glimpses of long-held grudges. There’s no real propulsion, or nicely crafted arc. But Resnick’s Renee is quite the character and the show did spur laughter from theatergoers.

Onstage, two platforms act as living spaces decorated with mid-century modern furniture courtesy of scenic designer Courtney O’Neill. A French loveseat from Renee’s travels abroad stands among the other furniture. In the play, Harmon shares that his grandmother had French heritage. The antique loveseats — which she has shipped from France — were dear to her. In the 1960s, Renee took the kids on an ocean voyage to Europe. She dropped the kids off at a French language program in Switzerland and took the train to Paris. There, she donned fabulous clothes and luxuriated in her hotel room. She proclaimed that her life, for the first time in more than a decade, was her own. Joshua, in the play, still has his grandmother’s loveseats which help him feel close to her.

As Renee is dying in the show, the reliable Ellen steps in to take care of things. She’s duty-bound after all. As I watched the scene, I hoped the two would have some kind of discussion and move toward healing and closure before the clock ran out.

Time is something you can never get back.

The Huntington Theatre’s production of “We Had a World” runs through March 15.