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“The Lyons,” written by Nicky Silver and directed by Mark Brokaw, is a barbed look at a dysfunctional family facing the imminent death of its patriarch, Ben. All of the characters are at a crossroads of some sort, but perhaps none more so than Ben’s son Curtis, a gay short story writer, played by Esper.
“There’s some really sad, tough stuff here,” Esper says of the play, “but I have a lot of hope for Curtis and everyone in the play. There’s hilarious cruelty, but there’s lots of room for them to grow and be happy people. Nicky’s written them really lovingly. There’s music in the play.”
Esper hits all the right notes as the tormented Curtis, in a complex performance that really lets the actor flex his muscles, particularly in a second act scene that verges on the Albee-esque. The actor is able to reveal Curtis’ wounds without subverting the humor that steers Silver’s play north of banality.
Esper first met Silver when the two worked on Silver’s 2006 show, “The Agony and the Agony,” and they quickly became best friends. Both are quick to praise each other’s talents. “He is the kindest person,” Silver says. “His combination of technique and emotional accessibility is amazing. He is the best actor in New York.”
“It’s really beautiful what Nicky says about relationships,” Esper says. “About how one orients himself, especially if they’re terrified of people,” he adds with a laugh. As for the actors who play his family – Tony winners Dick Latessa and Linda Lavin as his parents and Kate Jennings Grant as his troubled sister, Lisa – Esper describes them as “a wonderful family.”
“They couldn’t be better,” he continues. “And there’s so much support on and offstage, which you’re especially grateful for when the characters’ relationships are so difficult.”
If family is a running theme in Esper’s shows, which also include last year’s “The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures” by Tony Kushner at the Public Theater, it’s because it’s a priority for him as well. Both of his parents are performers, as is his sister, Shannon. His father, William, founded the esteemed William Esper Studio, teaching generations of actors including Kathy Bates, Aaron Eckhart, and Timothy Olyphant.
When asked if people assume his family connections have helped open career doors, Esper answers with refreshing candor. “I’m sure they do,” he says. “And you know what? They may be right!” There isn’t a trace of resentment or bristling at the suggestion. “Maybe people saw me because of who my parents were,” he adds. “I’m extraordinarily lucky. I don’t know what professional opportunities came from them, but I definitely had an advantage in how I was raised in that I was exposed to people who revered art and were interested in theater. Those values were a huge part of my growing up.”
Acting wasn’t always part of Esper’s plan, however. “I met with a manager as a teenager and was mortified by the process,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I’ll never be comfortable doing this.’” Instead, he set out to pursue writing and philosophy at the private liberal arts school Oberlin College, which he left after a year. “It was a great school, and the classes were incredible, but I wasn’t happy there,” he explains.
After taking a year off, he took classes at his father’s acting studio. “I pretty quickly knew that this was what I wanted to do,” he says. “My parents did a really good job of always supporting me but never pushing me.”
Compliments also pervade all of Esper’s recollections of past work experiences as well, including “Idiot” - “Those guys were amazing…my affection for Green Day grew enormously working on it” - and “Intelligent,” which Esper counts as a career highlight. “That show was a dream come true,” he says. “I saw ‘Angels in America’ in high school, and it was one of those experiences that changes you forever. How was it possible to see what I had just seen? It was incredible being at the Guthrie as [Kushner] wrote it. We’d get new pages still hot from the printer! It’s a beautiful, fearless play.”
Those are adjectives one can now expect to be applied to Esper himself.
