By James Kent
I cannot say that Kenneth Lonergan’s semi-autobiographical 2000 play “The Waverly Gallery” is an uplifting experience, but it is a thought-provoking one, handled with deft and care by director Bill Coons and the cast and crew of The Shaker Bridge Theatre. It’s tough subject matter, an aging matriarch, Gladys, whose worsening Alzheimer’s condition is coped with by her surviving family, a daughter, Ellen Fine, son-in-law, Howard Fine, adult grandson, Daniel Reed, and an artist named Don Bowman.
The action centers on a struggling art gallery in Greenwich Village, New York City, in the late 1990s. Gladys Green, a retired lawyer, now in her 80s, runs the gallery. Although it isn’t very successful, it gives Gladys something to do to pass the time, and she enjoys it. Money is not the concern here, but a worsening Alzheimer’s condition is what worries her family the most. News that the hotel surrounding the gallery will modernize and absorb the gallery, turning it into a breakfast café, unsettles the family even more. Ellen, Howard, and Daniel know that the gallery is the stability that gives Gladys purpose, and without it, they fear her Alzheimer’s will progress more rapidly.
The scenes in the gallery, in Gladys’ apartment, and the Fines’ (Ellen and Howard’s) apartment reveal the plot and Gladys’ evolving state of Alzheimer’s in rapid succession. We don’t get to know the pre-Alzheimer’s Gladys, only the one who is slowly losing her memory. We experience her decline as her family does, and we search through clues of who she was through the jumble of memories Gladys catalogs through her mixed-up monologues of confusion.
There is humor in Lonergan’s work, though the subject matter is somber. Gladys is a pistol, a true New York character, and it’s hard not to enjoy her spirited worldview and appreciation of starving undiscovered artists.
But if the subject matter makes you squeamish, and you are unsure if this is the play for you, I give you a reason, oh, a magnificent reason to catch “The Waverly Gallery” in its next two weekends of performances. And that reason is Marina Re. Re, as Gladys, is the heart and soul of this production. She makes you believe that Gladys is more than a fictionalized creation of Lonergan’s own grandmother, and a performance of a clever actor. No, in Re, we have someone who transforms Gladys into a fully realized vision before our very eyes, going through the various stages of Alzheimer’s as real and true as anyone who has been afflicted with the condition. The part, for sure, is a great one. Elaine May famously won a Tony Award in 2018 for her performance in the Broadway revival. It’s no easy feat to take on a role so powerfully owned in recent memory, yet Re accomplishes it. I found it difficult to look away from Re during the show, because her embodiment of Gladys was so magnetic. There were moments when the stage blocking of other characters obscured Gladys from view, as if the character’s Alzheimer’s required a lack of attention to be paid, yet I couldn’t help but crane my neck to see how Gladys was reacting. Fans of theatrical performance, take note: you simply must come out and catch “The Waverly Gallery” to see Re’s acting.
As I mentioned, the play makes you think. I thought about the importance we place on a business like Gladys’ tiny gallery. Yes, the family sees it as a way to keep Gladys occupied and perhaps tethered to the life and world she still remembers, but it seems more than that. The gallery represents a part of Gladys past that her family remembers too, a happy time in Gladys’ life before Alzheimer’s. We all have places like that in our lives. There are some we frequent often, others only now and again, and even more that we visit only after years have passed. Yet, when we hear of their closure, it brings sadness. Those places represent memories that will now fade. When they are still in the world, we give our brains the reassurance that new memories will be created, but closure represents finality. For the Fines and the Greens, the loss of Gladys’ memory and the gallery are one too many losses to bear.
Ultimately, “The Waverly Gallery” offers its audience an honest look at how a disease like Alzheimer’s affects a family, not just the person with it. It’s a tough but rewarding journey, marked with great performances, and it makes a fitting conclusion to the Shaker Bridge Theatre’s 18th Season. You’ve got two weekends left. Try to see it.
James Kent is the arts editor at the Mountain Times.
For tickets and more information, visit: shakerbridgetheatre.org.
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