“4,000 Miles” kicked off the 2022-23 mainstage season at Fresno State’s University Theatre on Friday, Sept. 30, with a showcase of talent from both current students and alumni.

Written by Amy Herzog, “4,000 Miles” focuses on the relationship between 21-year-old Leo Joseph-Connell, who has just experienced a tragic loss, and his spirited grandmother, Vera Joseph, who is 70 years his senior.

The play opens with Leo arriving without advance notice on his grandmother’s Greenwich Village, New York City, doorstep at 3 a.m. after biking 4,000 miles from Seattle. The next hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission, featured Fresno State senior Tyler Murphy as Leo and alumna Kelsey Deroian as Vera onstage for nearly every scene. 

With Leo having completed his physical journey of 4,000 miles, Murphy focuses on conveying his emotional journey during the following days as Leo and Vera become unlikely temporary roommates. His consequent performance, described as his “tour-de-force” by director Kathleen McKinley, had him laughing, crying, yelling and dumbstruck within an hour alone.

Leo is plagued with a loss that remains largely ambiguous in early scenes, and when it is later revealed it’s a shocking and senseless enough tragedy to merit extreme reactions, although, this loss remains noticeably less surprising than the family drama he left behind in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Murphy, who is 21 years old like Leo, doesn’t have to do much to be a convincing young man. It’s Deroian who was tasked with convincing the audience she is a woman much older than her actual age.

Deroian did an excellent job of embodying the physical mannerisms of Vera, moving with tottering steps and believably struggling with the consequences of age.

The play frequently featured Deroian as Vera struggling to find her words, which marks a particular frustration for a woman who has long been an intellectual and up until recently gathered with a group of friends each month for political discussions. 

Fresno State students will relate to the sometimes sympathetic, sometimes uncomfortably harsh dynamic between Leo and Vera as her grandson sometimes shows pity for her struggles and other times lashes out in annoyance. 

The most enjoyable scenes were when both characters are able to find a middle ground and bond. One of the top comedic moments in the play was when Leo is able to convince his grandmother to smoke weed with him, following with them discussing their sex lives.

Molly Heng’s brief portrayal of Leo’s date Amanda was another high point in the play, with Heng bringing an immediate bubbling energy to the set as an aspiring “international art star” still trying to choose her medium.

While Heng’s character could have easily remained a stereotypical performance, her critique of Vera’s communist texts and philosophy serves to elevate her character and prompts Leo to reach his emotional breakthrough in the next scene.

While the performances from Murphy and Deorian themselves were the greatest strength of the play, McKinley’s decades of experience in directing was evident in the flow of the production. 

Transitions between scenes were marked with snippets of well-known folk songs, predominantly from Bob Dylan and Janis Ian. Dylan’s 70s hit “Shelter from the Storm” opens the production while “Forever Young” closes it out, with lyrics often mirroring the struggles of Leo and Vera.

The set itself transfers the audience from the Dennis and Cheryl Woods Theatre to an elderly woman’s New York apartment, complete with salmon colored walls and family photos lining the bookcases. 

Overall, “4,000 Miles” marks a promising start to the 2022-23 mainstage season, which will take a sharp turn from the genre of family drama into horror later this month with “Misery,” written by William Goldman and based on the novel by Stephen King. 

The novel was previously adapted into the well-known 1990 film of the same name that starred Kathy Bates and became the only film based on a Stephen King novel to win an Academy Award. 

However, the talent displayed in the production of “4,000 Miles,” as well as the positive reception from the audience upon its completion, set an encouraging standard leading up to Fresno State’s take on “Misery.”

Tyler D’errico is a junior geomatics major at Fresno State. You can read his movie and television reviews at tylerdreviews.weebly.com.