Doris and Ivy in the Home

Reviewed by Iris Mann
Theatre 40
Through August 23

RECOMMENDED

Norm Foster is known as Canada’s Neil Simon. In dealing with such profound issues as aging, life and death, love and loss, sickness and health, loneliness, friendship and hope, the playwright has fashioned a sweetly touching work. He has also endowed the play with three very distinct characters. Although the days of one of the three are definitely known to be numbered, there is the hovering possibility that the home, Paradise Village, may be life’s last stop for all of them. When the play begins, one of the unseen residents has had a stroke, a reminder of the increasing fragility that can come with increasing age.

The trio that are the focus of the play includes Ivy Hoffbauer (Ann Hearn), a ladylike, but strong woman and a former Austrian ski champion who lost her last and most important competition due to a freak accident that was widely televised. Humiliated, Ivy left her home country and settled in Canada. She is plagued by the fact that “Hoffbauering” has become a term for screwing up. Ivy has had three husbands; one was a cheat, one a drunk, and one a con man.  But she is thankful for her two daughters.

Ivy is being pursued by the gentlemanly Arthur Beech (David Hunt Stafford), a highly educated former professor and something of a poet, as he comes up with relevant limericks on the spur of the moment. He has been given only two years to live because he has bowel cancer. Arthur loved the wife he lost and woos the resistant Ivy because he wants one last love in his final days.

We meet Doris Mooney (Diana Angelina) on her first day at Paradise Village. Doris, who used to be a guard at a men’s prison, is outspoken, even racy, and in need of a friend. She is a widow and didn’t have a great marriage. She says she loves men but doesn’t want them around all the time. At the beginning, Ivy is taken aback by her, but the two soon become good buddies.

One of the humorous elements of the story rests in a running gag. A man and woman, invisible to the audience, who live at the home, continually have sex amid the greenery near the back patio. Doris is fascinated by the two as they get it on, and, ultimately, she and Ivy start watching them through binoculars.

Among the more poignant moments that Foster has injected into the proceedings is the section in which Ivy, who says she is not in love with Arthur, tells Doris that she and Arthur spent the night together, just cuddling. She says they were hoping time could stand still, and that they could stay in the comfort of the moment without worrying about what lies ahead.

For all of its many virtues, and unlike the work of Neil Simon, Doris and Ivy in the Home is only intermittently funny, and the overly long first scene could do with some judicious trimming.

Director Warren Davis establishes a brisk pace, which largely makes up for the dearth of funny one-liners. He has also created an environment in which the three actors are listening intently to each other throughout.

The performances provide all that one could want. Stafford is a standout, projecting a courtly, urbane quality, undergirded by a gentle strength and bravery as the gentleman whose time is limited.

Hearn emits the sense that her character has a core of sturdiness underneath her veneer of proper reserve. When she opens up in the second act to reveal a sense of humor, spunkiness and a loosening of her language, it is an effective contrast to her earlier demeanor.

Angelina took over at the last minute for the actor originally cast in her role who had to withdraw because of a car accident. Consequently, Angelina was still on script, which gave the action the suggestion of being a rehearsal, although a polished one. Despite the circumstances, her performance is excellent, embodying a brash, energetic, salty, but good-natured quality that is infectious.

As usual, Jeff G. Rack does a lovely job of set designing. For this show he has created a serene setting, the back patio of the home, with a quiet elegance suggestive of an expensive facility.

Mature audiences may well recognize aspects of themselves in the various facets of the characters.

The play is being presented in repertory with One Moment of Freedom.

Theatre 40, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. Opens Thurs., July 20; Check website for schedule; thru Aug. 23. Evenings, 7:30 pm, Sun., 2 pm. http://theatre40.org Running time: two hours, with one intermission.