Review: THE WAVERLY GALLERY at 1st Stage

Kenneth Lonergan writes plays about complicated people and life's complications. His characters don't necessarily "figure everything out"; his plots don't necessarily resolve. The Waverly Gallery, at 1st Stage through October 6, fits into his body of work (plays such as Lobby Hero and This is Our Youth; films such as Gangs of New York and Manchester by the Sea, for which he won a Best Screenplay Oscar) and features a masterful performance by Catherine Flye. Let another theatre entertain you; see The Waverly Gallery to be engrossed.

Flye plays Gladys, an 80-something manager of a Greenwich Village art gallery. Her grandson Daniel (a sensitive Ethan J. Miller) lives nearby, and her daughter and son in law live uptown. Gladys is independent and chipper until what seems to be dementia starts to rob her of her world. Lonergan resists writing "a play about dementia," gripping instead the much more important topic of what the disease does not just to those who have it, but to those around them. Gladys' family loyally love and support her at several different stages over several years; how difficult this can be is what Lonergan wants audiences to experience.

As Gladys' daughter Ellen, Lisa Hodsoll excels at the wide range of emotions and action Ellen goes through while watching her mother change: impatience, devotion, fear, self-assurance, anger, helplessness, defeat. Hodsoll seems to have a dial, and that's why she's perfect in the role because Lonergan reveals the ever-changing interior world of watching one's mother disappear. Sasha Olinick as Howard, her husband, brings less feeling which is appropriate because Howard is a mental health professional. And Miller must actually play two versions of Daniel, the good grandson who's also not immune to the frustrations his grandmother causes and Lonergan's narrator, breaking the fourth wall like the Stage Manager in Our Town to keep the audience up to date on plot details.

Flye's generous performance is just amazing--high enthusiasm for life one minute, panic over trivia the next. Gladys' non-sequiturs are an actor's minefield. The sudden emotional outbursts jar the realism of daily life. That, of course, is what the disease does. And Director Alex Levy has made sure all of that is clear.

Set Designer Kathryn Kawecki created a unit set for the three and a half locations in The Waverly Gallery: the gallery itself, Ellen's and Howard's dining room, a bit of Daniel's apartment, and a bit of his front door. Luis Garcia's lighting defines each place with clarity.

The Waverly Gallery never seems truly dark; laughter, light, and love in a family provide balance so that the 2 hours fly by. But Lonergan does not try to resolve what happens to these people--he's too wise for that--which gives a new and much-improved and even beneficial meaning to the phrase, "for mature audiences only."

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