June 5, 2019

REVIEW: The Waverly Gallery, Shakespeare & Co.

Shakespeare & Company, Lee, MA
www.shakespeare.org
through July 14, 2019
By Barbara Stroup

The “strings of the heart” provided the theme for Artistic Director Allyn Burrows as he chose this year’s plays for Shakespeare & Company, and the summer season’s first offering pulls on those strings throughout. “The Waverly Gallery” looks at a family whose own hearts are seized by the gradual mental decline of their beloved matriarch. When the audience meets Gladys Green, a former attorney and current gallery owner, she is engaged in a loving conversation with her grandson. It takes only a few moments to realize that this is a conversation oft-repeated, but the devotion she and her grandson share is intense and enduring - for the moment.

Played by veteran stage actress Annette Miller, it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role of Gladys, despite accolades heaped on prior distinguished performances. Miller is stunning in her portrayal, never over-reaching for audience sympathy, but genuine in maintaining the core of her character’s self. Her Gladys is thoroughly charming, vital and complex, whose love for her family reaches over the wall that her illness is building around her. How Miller can maintain this performance is  astounding.

Gladys’ grandson Daniel, ably played by David Gow, also provides narration as the drama unfolds over a period of several months. Gladys’ daughter Ellen, and her second husband Howard (Elizabeth Aspenlieder and Michael F. Toomey) appear as the family hosts Gladys for their ritual weekly dinner. Each has chosen a way to cope with Gladys: Ellen by giving constant and frustrated reality checks, and Howard by using a booming voice to compensate for Gladys’ hearing loss. Both fail. Gladys enlists the help of Don (David Bertoldi), an artist of questionable worth for a gallery show. This new friendship proves of some value, but the dilemmas this character faces seem glued onto the central drama unnecessarily. Gladys is ultimately alone with her changing self, revealing to the audience a glimpse of some of her panic as she shuffles down the hall to her grandson’s door.

Playwright Kenneth Lonergan draws out Gladys’ decline in a series of wrenching scenes that drive the play toward the inevitable. Director Tina Packer makes the most of conversations that are simultaneous, a hallmark of this play. There is a hint of the future when Ellen herself forgets a word - twice, and love prevails with poignancy at the close. The viewing audience has seen several dramatic portrayals of Alzheimer’s disease in movieland, but this representation is superbly intimate. Bravo to Shakespeare & Co. for a choice that reflects a dilemma that faces so many today and for presenting it with admirable artistry and laughter.