Stage Notes: Sixty Miles to Silver Lake

Sixty Miles to Silver Lake is a new play by Dan LeFranc, an experienced playwright with numerous awards and fellowships to his credit. He is equally matched by director Anne Kauffman, whose work is invariably clear and seamless. She is expert at creating tension, and won a well-deserved Obie in 2007 for smoothly staging Adam Bock’s office-mystery, The Thugs. This skill might come in handy here: it’s a two-character play, about a boy and his father in a car.

So what happens in this play, Anne?
This is a piece that charts the trip from Orange County (Southern California) to Silver Lake (Los Angeles). It’s not just one trip, but it spans seven to eight years of time. The dad moved to Silver Lake and the boy lives with his mom in Orange County, and the dad takes him on his visitation to his new home in Silver Lake.

Is it a memory play?
You experience the trip through the kid’s memories and associations. We watch him grow up in that car, literally and figuratively. The play is about the sins of the father passed on to his son. You watch the kid grow up in the shadow of the dad, between ages 10 and 17.

Do you see any difficulty with the setting?
It seems very static because it takes place in a car, but that car is a world, and the world of the play expands and contracts in that car.

The writing has to be pretty good.
Dan is writing for the theater. He’s playing with time and theatrical convention and language. It’s very visceral, intimate and horrific, and extremely funny too. It’s a tragic comedy.

Tell me about your actors.
Dane De Haan plays the boy. When we were casting we saw over 200 kids, because you have to get someone with the chops. Dan’s language is challenging. But also, he has to be believably innocent too. We had actors who could play teen-agers, but we needed the 10-11 year old innocence.

What about the dad?
Joseph Adams plays the father. You want to see a normal, California father-son relationship. People have to believe they’re Californians. The father needs a particular energy. He has to be a little bit of a monster, without believing, or seeing, that he is. I don’t know if I should use that word.

“Monster”?
Part of the humor and horror of this is his sort of transgressing the appropriate father-son relationship.

What do you mean?
In a divorce situation one of the parents wants to be a “buddy” with a kid, and this action can be somewhat disturbing. It says a lot about the father. In trying to be friends with the kid, it brings up the question: what new thing are we now? It’s not the normal parent-child unit.

What’s the running length?
It’s a long one-act, probably one hour, 20 minutes.

Soho Rep. 46 Walker St., (212) 352-3101. Previews Jan. 15, opens Jan. 22 - Feb. 8. Tues.-Sun., 7:30 p.m.; mats., Sat., 3 p.m. $35.