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The cast of Backyard Renaissance Theatre\u2019s \u201cWaverly Gallery,\u201d left to right, Alexander Ameen, Katie MacNichol, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Tom Zohar and William Huffaker. (Backyard Renaissance Theatre)<\/p>\nIt\u2019s perhaps ironical that Kenneth Lonergan\u2019s \u201cThe Waverly Gallery\u201d is considered a \u201cmemory play\u201d when its story is of an elderly woman beginning to slip into Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The gallery is one that the character, Gladys Green, owns in Greenwich Village. She lives above it and clings to it.<\/p>\n
Lonergan\u2019s play, in which both Eileen Heckart and Joanne Woodward starred as Gladys when it premiered during the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1999, didn\u2019t make its Broadway debut until 2018. That revival would earn Elaine May, playing Gladys, a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.<\/p>\n
Now Deborah Gilmour Smyth, associate artistic director of Lamb\u2019s Players Theatre, steps into the role of Gladys in Backyard Renaissance Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cThe Waverly Gallery,\u201d beginning previews next Thursday.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest star turn for Gilmour Smyth at Backyard, where she performed last year in \u201cThe Beauty Queen of Leenane\u201d and the year before that in \u201cAugust: Osage County.\u201d Francis Gercke, who is directing, co-directed and performed in New Village Arts\u2019 production of \u201cThe Wavery Gallery\u201d 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
Gilmour Smyth calls playing Gladys Green \u201cextremely emotional. Lonergan wrote this back in the \u201890s when a lot of things were just beginning to be assimilated and put into books to help people dealing with aging parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen some of this,\u201d added Gilmour Smyth, who says she has power of attorney for a good friend who just in the past 18 months has entered memory care. \u201cIt\u2019s painful in a way I didn\u2019t expect. I said I would do this (role) last year; then my friend started getting worse and worse. But it\u2019s been bizarrely helpful in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cast of Backyard Renaissance Theatre\u2019s \u201cWaverly Gallery,\u201d left to right, Alexander Ameen, Katie MacNichol, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Tom Zohar and William Huffaker. (Backyard Renaissance Theatre)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Waverly Gallery\u201d is told from the perspective of Gladys\u2019 grandson Daniel, who is \u201cpaying homage to his grandmother,\u201d said Gilmour Smyth.<\/p>\n
Tom Zohar is playing the part of Daniel, based on Lonergan\u2019s own autobiographical experience. The Backyard cast also features Katie MacNichol as Gladys\u2019 daughter Ellen, Alexander Ameen as Ellen\u2019s husband Howard, and William Huffaker as a young painter from Boston named Don Bowman whom Gladys seeks to help even as her mental state deteriorates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lovely relationship,\u201d said Gilmour Smyth. \u201cBut as the disease progresses, she doesn\u2019t even know his name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gilmour Smyth said Gladys was at one time an attorney and an active Greenwich Village socialist but still a woman of some vitality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I love about Gladys,\u201d she said, \u201cis that she\u2019s such an outgoing human being. She\u2019s getting sick, but she\u2019s still funny and still warm. My friend is that way, too. There\u2019s a logic to every human being, even if they\u2019re in dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recognizes that some theatergoers, those who may be seeing memory loss in their own friends or family members, may be hesitant about the subject matter of \u201cThe Waverly Gallery.\u201d But they shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that people aren\u2019t afraid of it (the play) because I think that it deals with this disease on such an honest level. It might give them a touch of healing in their heart. For me, that\u2019s how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The Waverly Gallery\u2019<\/p>\n
When: Previews begin Nov. 13. Opens Nov. 22 and runs through Dec. 6. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n
Where: Backyard Renaissance Theatre at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center, 930 Tenth Ave., downtown<\/p>\n
Tickets: $15-$50<\/p>\n
Phone: 760-975-7189<\/p>\n