Under the skilled direction of Peter DuBois, “Vengeance’’ manages to explore the tensions between those dueling impulses during a series of holiday family gatherings without shortchanging or patronizing either side of the equation. I won’t reveal which of the two impulses eventually wins out in “Vengeance,’’ but they are projected with roughly equal force by Larry Pine as Mathew (yes, it’s spelled with one “t’’) Horvath, and by Roberta Wallach as his ex-wife, Margaret.
As “Vengeance’’ gets underway, Mathew and Margaret are gathered for Thanksgiving dinner with their three adult children: tough, implacable Woodrow (Lee Tergesen); jittery Roanne (Katie Kreisler), who is vainly trying to stop smoking; and the youngest and gentlest, 22-year-old Donald (Karl Baker Olson). Both literally and figuratively, Donald is as Woodrow describes him: “a vegetarian in a house of carnivores.’’
There was a fourth child, Cheryl, who was 20 when she was murdered a decade ago. Now, her killer is on the verge of a parole hearing and, to Mathew’s disbelief, Margaret wants to meet with him before the hearing. “I need to look in his eyes,’’ she tells Mathew, so “if when he asks forgiveness, I can see he’s changed.’’ If she does see a change, Margaret will not oppose his release from prison.
What makes this intriguing is that Margaret is such a hard-bitten, tough-as-nails character. Her need to consider forgiveness for the prisoner stems from a desire to escape her own internal prison; she even thinks her hip problems are exacerbated by her “festering anger and hate toward another.’’
