“We Had a World” by Joshua Harmon opens with an ending. Running at The Huntington’s Calderwood Pavilion from Feb. 12 to March 15, this semi-autobiographical work is a play within a play that depicts Joshua (Will Conard), his mother Ellen (Eva Kaminsky) and his grandmother Renee (Amy Resnick) as their familial relationship evolves over time. 

“The play literally opens with what would be the biggest spoiler, which is a conversation about the fact that his grandmother is dying,” Conard said. “It’s a play that understands the grayness of family relationships, how not black and white it is and how complex all of us are.”

As his grandmother is dying, Joshua reflects on past memories. When his mother reveals that Renee struggled with alcoholism throughout his childhood and into adulthood, he realizes their relationship wasn’t as picture perfect as he remembered. 

On her deathbed, Renee calls Joshua and asks him to write a play about their family. “But I want you to promise me something,” she says. “Make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible.”

Joshua does just that. The play spans 30 years — all the way from Joshua’s first major school performance to his first relationship and realization that his grandmother was an alcoholic. 

For Conard, starring in “We Had a World” is a dream come true. When he was in graduate school, “everyone and their mother” suggested he join a Harmon production. Now, it’s finally happening.

“There are a ton of similarities in terms of our background. I’m also from New York. I’m also Jewish. His plays make a lot of sense to me,” Conard said. 

Because the play is semi-autobiographical, the personal and professional overlap is evident. 

“[Harmon] is so good at writing about people in very specific situations who are dealing with very specific problems, and [yet] I can read it and feel right smack in the middle of it,” he said. But that sensitivity also comes with pressure.

“There is a responsibility to playing a real person. You have to treat it with a certain kind of respect. Also, there is a challenge, because all three of us are basically on stage for the entire play,” Conard said, referring to Kaminsky and Resnick.

With the cast only made up of three actors, audience members are able to get a detailed, multifaceted view of each character. Conard and his costars Kaminsky and Resnick were also able to form tight-knit connections with each other. 

“It’s the best. There’s no way to not get close immediately. We went for dinner and were suddenly so close with one another,” Conard said. Those relationships allowed him to understand the nuances of his costars’ expressions on stage in a way that would have been harder with a larger cast. 

For David Valdes, a playwright and audience member, one theme stuck out. “[Joshua’s] trying to hold on to something good about each of them when [Ellen and Renee] have trouble doing that for each other. I thought that was really powerful,” Valdes said. 

Ellen and Renee have a tumultuous relationship, as Ellen tries to shield Joshua from Renee’s alcoholism. Through his mother and grandmother’s fights, Joshua repeatedly attempts to show up for them, both emotionally and physically. 

Although Ellen and Renee from the show are nothing like Conard’s mother and grandmother in real life, “I will say things and it feels like talking to my mother and it feels like talking to my grandmother,” Conard said. 

Conard’s grandmother, Sue Mellins, attended the play. 

“Toward the end, some of those scenes really got to me as a grandmother. I felt it was a very good depiction of generational conflict and generations sustaining through it all,” she said. 

Mellins is a theatre lover and left the show with only one critique: “It needed a little bit of cutting and reshaping at the end. I felt there was something little missing in terms of his realization about his grandmother,” she said. 

Besides that, she said it was wonderful to watch her grandson in his biggest role yet and that “We Had a World” had a “wonderful combination of humor and emotional impact.”

Valdes felt similarly. 

“I think it’s incredibly well constructed. It’s a very honest play that manages to walk a fine line, navigating trauma and grief and humor and empathy,” Valdes said.