Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Reviewed by Iris Mann
Theatre 40
Through February 19

RECOMMENDED

This delightfully whimsical play by Katie Forgette, has a bittersweet underpinning and invites comparison with Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, particularly due to its metatheatrical device of breaking the fourth wall to have the characters address the audience directly. Also, like Our Town, it deals with a small community, in this case, a tight-knit Catholic parish, and is a memory play, dealing with the memory of a crisis, the “incident” of the title.                                                                                                                             

The crisis takes place in 1973, when, as Linda O’Shea (Ivy Khan), the protagonist and narrator, reminds us, it was the time of analog living, with no texting or posting on social media. You “lived your life in person,” and you were also “held up to public ridicule in person.” For the members of a lower middle-class Irish family, the most important asset they could possess was their good name, which was threatened by the incident.

As Linda starts to talk about her recollections, the other characters keep interrupting, wanting to tell their stories and their memories of the events in question. The incident, or crisis, relates to what happened after Linda’s mother, Jo (Alison Blanchard), pleads with her to tell her younger sister, Becky (Danika Hughey), about menstruation, and, while she’s at it, to throw in some information about the birds and the bees. Jo describes a woman’s period as part of God’s  “colorful mosaic,” but just the thought of talking about it causes her to cry, so she can’t do it.

Linda finally agrees and explains the subjects in the most graphic, ribald terms. Without realizing it, Becky, who loves old gangster movies and plays at being various characters from those films, interrogating and investigating people, has her cassette machine (this is the 1970s) recording underneath her trench coat. Then, the tape of Linda’s raunchy explanation accidentally gets played in Becky’s Catholic school class in front of the formidable Father Lovett (Patrick Skelton), who is scandalized. He is intent on telling Becky’s father (also Skelton) about the corruption of his older daughter’s soul, while Linda and other family members are just as intent on preventing the priest from talking to the father, and keeping the incident from ruining their reputation. Subterfuge and blackmail get mixed in with the ensuing hijinks.

Director Ann Hearn Tobolowsky sets just the right rhythm for the piece and conducts her actors so they transition effortlessly from addressing the audience to reenacting scenes from the past. She makes skillful use of the expanse of the set, and she also establishes a pleasing comedic level for the cast, while injecting a hint of poignancy.

Khan displays an impressive stage presence from the very beginning and navigates the required emotional layers deftly. She projects a winning demeanor throughout. Blanchard does excellent work, moving from a seemingly foolish, naïve and unsophisticated woman to a mother that is more “with it” than one expects.

As the aunt living with the family because she is separated from her husband, Milda Dacys displays a biting humor and cynicism that are delicious, and then she reveals a moving vulnerability when her character talks of the conflicts in her marriage.  

Hughey gives an adorable performance and manages to mingle a precocious quality with an essential innocence in a very endearing way.

Skelton, who covers three roles, is bombastic and tough as the girls’ father, and properly stern and rigid as the priest. He successfully differentiates between the two male characters, but is less successful as a gossipy woman. It’s not so much his performance; it just becomes too campy to have him don a wig and speak in a faux feminine voice.

The set design by the talented Jeff G. Rack creates a fitting environment for the action, and costume designer Michele Young has clothed the cast quite appropriately for the era.

Theatre 40, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills; Thu. – Sat., 7:30 pm.; Sun., 2 pm.; through Feb.19;
(310) 364-0535 or https://theatre40.org; Running time: approximately 90 mins. with no intermission.