I added this play to my season as an after-thought. I do love a lot of the wonderful things that come out of this scrappy little theatre company housed over an auto repair shop literally in the shadows of new mega-gazillion dollar high rises and obscenely large shopping malls in the economic heart of Northern Virginia. At times it can feel like lifting up a shoe-box in a ditch and discovering a pearl. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.
I was drawn to add this show after seeing the cast, some fine actors, Catherine Flye, Sasha Olnick and one of my favorite new faces, Ethan J. Miller. Plus, I was aware that on Broadway it won a Tony for best revival under the acting of Michael Cera and Elaine May. Also, 1st Stage offers an insanely generous discount for teachers. From the start there was an awkward uncertainty in the blocking. The characters seemed disconnected. Talking at and not to each other. This devolved into talk over and through each other, and finally shouting at and past each other. In the second act, there were a few sparks of light, a few moments of genuine connection, but by then it was too late to salvage. The subject of the play is Alzheimer's and the struggle to accept what's happening to the already somewhat eccentric matriarch of the family. It's not an easy subject to tackle, and with more and more people coming to the table with personal experience in the matter, a play that centers around confusion and dysfunction over compassion really doesn't have anything to say worth listening to.
Knowing what I do of the talent pool, I can only surmise that the director was in over his head. The incidentals were fine, felt the set designer missed an opportunity to push beyond realistic representations of spaces, the entrances to the dining room were poorly proportioned and made entrances and exists awkward for the actors at times.
They can't all be winners...
Gladys (Catherine Flye)
Gladys' daughter, Ellen (Lisa Hodsoll) and grandson, Daniel (Ethan J. Miller), and an artist, Don (Aaron Bliden) who happens upon the gallery and becomes a helper as Gladys struggles.
Gladys, Ellen, Daniel, Howard (Sasha Olnick), Gladys' son-in-law, and Don
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