WAKE    

Reviewed by Martín Hernandez

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The title of Carey Crim’s darkly humorous and poignant play holds a double meaning: it refers to that pre-funeral gathering when we mourn the passing and rejoice in the history of our dearly departed; it also serves as a call for the living to rise from the slumber of self-exile that can follow a severe loss of a life, a memory, or a dream.  

For Molly (Allison Blanchard), that slumber takes the form of agoraphobia following the freak accident that killed her husband Peter (Lauren McCormack). She retreats from the outside world, hyperventilating each time she tries to leave her house.  If there’s any up side, it’s that she works at home, although it’s the funeral home she owns, where she’s a mortician.

Dating? Forget about it. Molly prefers conversing with dead Peter, along with other corpses to which she ministers, rather than chatting with the living. Though her family is relegated largely to the margins of Molly’s interactions, they sympathize with her plight. Molly’s precocious Russophile teen daughter Sam (Allie Costa) helps, albeit reluctantly, by having Molly as her home-school teacher. (Sam’s reaction to an assignment of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters is priceless.) Molly’s energetic mother Ivy (Nancy B. Berggren) finds novel ways to relieve her daughter’s loneliness, which has blinded Molly to her family members’ own emotional and psychological traumas.  So when Joe (Michael Connors), whose documentary films are devoid of people and who is as emotionally distant as Molly, comes to grieve for his deceased father, mother and daughter play matchmaker, much to Joe’s guarded delight and Molly’s chagrin.

Director Matt Kirkwood deftly maneuvers his formidable cast — from playwright Crim’s snappy one-liners to touching dialogue — without the actors skipping a beat. Blanchard and Connors display an engaging comic chemistry as two damaged people awkwardly attempting to connect romantically, notably when Joe teaches the kitchen-impaired Molly how to cook.

The funniest and most tender moments, however, derive from the trio of talented women, who enhance Crim’s wry repartee.  Aaron and Monika Henderson’s realistic set and Carol Doehring’s lighting also well- complement Kirkwood’s crisp, sturdy production about the many reverberations of grief.

SeaGlass Theatre at the Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., S. Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3  p.m.; through May 25. (626) 441-5977, www.fremontcentretheatre.com