The Reservoir
Memory Loss Two Ways in Thoughtful Dramedy from Berkeley Rep
By: Victor Cordell - Sep 12, 2025
Charismatic and queer, Josh has been kicked out of an alcoholism half-way house for fermenting his own hooch. Meanwhile, his tough-love mother, Patricia, has confiscated his driver’s license and credit cards and won’t let him return home until he’s been sober for 90 days. She believes that the addict won’t get it right unless there’s been a memorable price to pay. What is a young man to do?
So opens Jake Brasch’s compelling dramedy The Reservoir, now playing at Berkeley Rep. Full of strong performances of well-differentiated characters, this dark but funny semi-autobiography holds the attention throughout. The play strengthens as it progresses as Josh’s unappealing self-indulgence, is somewhat supplanted by touches of humility and redemption in Act 2.
Not uncommon with young writers is the tendency to cram a lot of the ideas that have consumed their early lives into one package. This is the case with The Reservoir, which benefits individually from all of its threads, but not all are essential for a cohesive narrative.
Two dominant narrative themes fuse through a modest linkage. Josh’s alcohol addiction dominates his part of the storyline. Ben Hirschhorn as Josh gives a bravura performance as the conflicted and immature youth, both when besotted and when recovering. His heavy drinking has resulted in occasional memory loss and blackouts, which includes missing a full day in which he was to bear responsibilities that he failed to fulfill, causing great consternation to others and repercussions to himself.
His memory loss ties into the second theme. Josh has left NYU to return home to Colorado where his single parent-mother and both sets of grandparents live. Dementia in general and Alzheimer’s in particular will sweep through his grandparents like an epidemic. The sadness of the associated catatonia leads to great reflection and many touching moments. There is much discussion of the technical aspects of dementia and clever metaphors about the processes involved, which also reveals the reason for the play’s title.
The play also identifies as being intergenerational. Indeed, Josh tries to connect with his grandparents, and he is not totally successful. He finds that they have their own lives to live, and partly due to his own missteps, he is not invited by all of them to be part of it. But he also objects to the politics of his paternal grandparents, arguing that if they loved him, they would accept that he is gay, and that in itself would change their politics. His relationship with his mother is fractious and one dimensional at this point, and her relationship with Josh’s grandparents is not really explored, so the intergenerational aspect is a bit underdeveloped.
A final theme relates to Judaism. The maternal grandparents are Jewish, and paternal grandparents are not. Triggered by grandfather Shrimpy (played by a sly and witty Peter Van Wagner), much humor is Jewish, especially because of his having a second bar mitzvah at age 85. The rest of the humor from the grandparents understandably centers on old people’s issues such as bad hips and bodily functions. The ethnic element however seems more like the playwright’s simply wanting to share personal information as it adds nothing to the essential concerns.
As Josh’s recovery waxes and wanes, he finds a surprise ally, his maternal grandmother. The wonderful Pamela Reed plays Bev, gracing her with deadpan sardonic humor, a foul mouth, and crack timing. Like Patricia, she shows tough love as well. However, she takes a more proactive role in trying to fix Josh by getting him to appreciate the small things in life that add up and make it worthwhile. But Josh finds her to be an enigma. While offering to pay his way back to NYU when his mother won’t, Bev still pushes Josh away. She doesn’t want to be friends but rather a grandmother who sends impersonal Hanukkah cards once a year, and he can’t understand why.
The Reservoir, with direction by Mike Donahue, plays on a spare set, so the focus is very much on the acting. Behind a strong lead, a fine ensemble gives excellent performances of a slightly flawed but thoughtful and entertaining play.
The Reservoir, written by Jake Brasch, is produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre and plays on its stage at 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, CA through October 12, 2025.