AS odd-couple dramedies go, "Grace and Glorie" is a fairly thin stew. Despite the two hours or so we spend with the eponymous characters -- a sickly 90-year-old woman and the well-meaning hospice worker from New York who visits her cabin in Appalachia -- playwright Tom Ziegler never convinces us that the women are drawn with anything more subtle than a Magic Marker. Actresses’ chemistry
Reviewed by Scott Vogel
is saving ‘Grace’
Star-BulletinWhich is what makes the achievement of the two actresses playing them (Jo Pruden and Shari Lynn) all the more astounding. The pair, under the bright direction of Vanita Rae Smith at the Manoa Valley Theatre, possess a special chemistry that enlivens their exchanges and throws each performance into spectacular relief. As a result, what could have been Hallmark Hall of Fame treacle (in fact the play was filmed for that series in 1998) becomes something special and rare, an exhibition of acting talent you dare not miss.
Watch the way Lynn tentatively extends her hand to Pruden when the city slicker first encounters the country jake, or the expression on her face as she shakes the stones from her elegant high-heels. Bewildered by the old woman's seeming isolation from the modern world, Lynn's Glorie tiptoes around the cabin with a gingerliness that betrays a hilarious disregard for the virtues of pastoral living. Pruden, meanwhile, plays this first scene (and much of the play) sitting up in bed, her performance avoiding conventional laugh-line delivery even as the script encourages cliched cantankerousness.
Grace, you see, is very close to death, and the way she sees it, Glorie is there to "help me die." Given this rather dim view of social work, it isn't long before the duo is battling over such subjects as morphine (Grace won't swallow it) and proper nourishment (ditto). But an extra-cabin conflict soon has the effect of bringing the women together, Glorie learning that Grace's 500 acres of property have recently been sold to a "sleazebag developer" at a ridiculously low price. (Throughout the first act, the women's conversation is interrupted by the sound of chainsaws clearing Grace's apple orchard, and the sound design, by Jason Taglianetti, is wonderfully obtrusive).
Even as Glorie vows to make Grace's last few days as happy as can be expected, she also files suit against the developer on Grace's behalf, hoping to secure a proper inheritance for Grace's grandchildren.
Sprinkled throughout the sober, turgid plot are many (thankfully) lighter moments, which dramatize a growing friendship and allow Pruden and Lynn to show off expert comic timing. At one point, the women prepare their favorite foods for each other. It's a stock scene, a staple of amateur playwrights. Yet in Lynn's hands it becomes a harrowing experience for Glorie, virtually guaranteeing that neither she nor you will eat Velveeta again.
Grace is similarly unimpressed by Glorie's gastronomic predilections. ("Isn't that heaven?" Glorie says, encouraging Grace to sniff the brie. "I sure hope not," Grace responds.) Lynn has some equally amusing business at the expense of Mary E. Lewis's quaint set, whose cast iron stove proves to be a formidable obstacle to the task of boiling an egg, and Grace (a self-described "backwoods redneck") experiences similar terror when confronted with a mascara wand for the first time.
But Ziegler's script can't help but pile further tragedy onto the mirth, and so we shortly learn that Glorie's 12-year-old son died tragically in a car accident (thus explaining why his parents left New York for life in rural Virginia) and that Grace has lived long enough to bury her five children, not to mention a host of other relatives. With each revelation, the play further approaches mawkishness, and the playwright's cause is not helped by several annoying improbabilities. (How is it possible that Grace, who has obviously watched television, is completely ignorant of things like video cameras?)
Still, Ziegler's tale of intergenerational bonding has at least one clear virtue. It somehow captured the imagination of Jo Pruden and Shari Lynn, who give a master class in multi-layered acting at Manoa Valley, one you are urged to attend at your earliest convenience.
And for that, Ziegler deserves our eternal thanks.
What: "Grace and Glorie" On stage
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 4 p.m. Sundays through June 3
Where: Manoa Valley Theater, 2833 E. Manoa Road
Cost: $22
Call: 988-6131
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