What Did You Expect?, the second installment of Richard Nelson’s trilogy at the Public subtitled The Gabriels: Election Year In The Life Of One Family, is literate (the characters tell a story about Melville; read from Edith Wharton and Euripides), aromatic (they cook a meal), and, arguably, misleading: The name “Trump” is uttered only once….
Although it may be reasonable to assume from the subtitle of the series that it will focus on one family’s take on this year’s presidential election, that is not what has happened so far.
Full review at DC Theatre Scene
Click on any photograph to see it enlarged

Meg Gibson as Karin (Thomas’s first wife) and Maryann Plunkett as Mary (Thomas’s widow) in What Did You Expect?

Amy Warren, Jay O. Sanders, Lynn Hawley, and Maryann Plunkett in What Did You Expect?

Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Lynn Hawley, and Amy Warren in What Did You Expect?, Play Two of The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family

Amy Warren and Jay O. Sanders as sister and brother in What Did You Expect?,

Roberta Maxwell and Amy Warren as mother and daughter in What Did You Expect?,

Jay O. Sanders and Lynn Hawley as husband and wife in What Did You Expect?,

Roberta Maxwell and Lynn Hawley as mother and daughter-in-law in What Did You Expect?,

my Warren, Maryann Plunkett, Lynn Hawley, and Meg Gibson in What Did You Expect?