From Theatre Mirror

Brian Tuttle is an excellent director. I realized that last year when “The Seagull” he directed was fresh and clear, with actors saying lines as though they felt and meant them honestly and directly. Here he found a writer, Jennifer Dubois, whose only second play he decided to produce. That same honesty of expression, in “Syllabus of Errors” means blazing emotions and family woundings.

At the center is a gifted physics professor (Evan Quinlan) who at 49 watches his whole promising life fall to shreds around him. An affair with his most promising student (Kaytie Dowcett) ended his marriage; now the suicide of his brother—jailed for vehicular homicide—has sent his 17-year-old daughter (Carolyn Blais) into daily communion and acrimonious contempt. His staunchest advocate on faculty (Steve Turner) is outraged to learn of his affair, and there is his brother’s funeral to try to deal with, as well as his guilt or innocence. Quite enough for one play, wouldn’t you say?

The play begins with a silent, disturbed surface smoldering with conflict eager to break free. When it does the dominoes predictably yet surprisingly jostle against one another until there is really nothing left. There is something of Ibsen about the inevitability of this tragedy—though Ibsen’s prose was never so direct, so wounding, nor so alive.

11:11 is doing this play “in the attic”—i.e., in the second-floor ehearsal room that replaces The Leland Center at the BCA. Tuttle put audience all around a living-room/work-room, so the deadly arguments are never far away, and audience may try to brush away blood-spray at the final blackout.