Keliher Walsh (Photo by Brian Hashimoto)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
IAMA and Boston Court Pasadena
Through May 26
In life and art, few events are more poignant than the long goodbye that follows a diagnosis of dementia for a family member or loved one. Films (Iris and The Father), plays (Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Shakespeare’s King Lear and Sharr White’s The Other Place) and books (Annie Erneaux’s Nobel-prize winning I Remain in Darkness and John Bayley’s The Iris Trilogy about his wife, Iris Murdoch) abound on the topic. Famous people whom we admire for their often towering intellect, craft or contributions to our culture have succumbed to its ravages. Most devastating is when the disease permeates either our own lives or the lives of friends we hold dear, altering them, irreversibly, forever.
In The Body’s Midnight, a world premiere directed by Jessica Kubzansky (a co-production of IAMA Theatre Company and Boston Court Pasadena), playwright Tira Palmquist builds her narrative around a late-middle-aged couple Anne (Keliher Walsh ) and David (Jonathan Nichols-Navarro) who are traveling cross-country to be present when their daughter Katie (Sonal Shah) gives birth to her first child. It’s inferred from the start, though not immediately made explicit, that something is not quite right with Anne’s health. This we gather from the overanxious telephone admonitions from Katie —why are you driving rather than flying? — and the protective, forbearing way David interacts with his wife. As for Anne, a poet, she’s presented here as a feisty person whose memory gaps increasingly affect her behavior, which more and more resembles that of a discomfited child.
The route they plan to take is altered after they meet a series of ecologically-minded strangers — first, the oddball Franklin (Ryan Garcia), who is dressed as a prospector and offers them water, and then Windy (Shah), a park ranger who counsels that they might learn more by traveling off the beaten track to visit less well-known tourist attractions instead of popular ones like the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore. Characters like these keep popping up throughout their journey, proffering facts about the growing devastation to Nature’s gifts (only 25 glaciers are left out of 150 in the 1800s) and advising the couple to experience them while they can. As we learn more about Anne’s diagnosis, a parallel seems to emerge between what’s happening around her and what’s happening inside her head.
Between these encounters the drama’s dynamic hinges on the back-and-forth in the marital relationship, with Anne more adventurous and open and David, a more organization-minded individual, usually capitulating to keep his beloved happy. These scenes — the spine of the play — are relayed with the kind of dialogue that reflects conversations between long-time spouses and friends. It doesn’t electrify.
So it’s important that the actors taking on these roles compensate with deep, rich performances. That wasn’t evident on the opening night I attended with the veteran Walsh, whose character is written to glean the bulk of our empathy, leaning on technique, while eschewing a genuine exploration of what it feels like to be losing oneself bit by painful bit.
As her husband, Nichols-Navarro finds a comfortable niche as her patient, loving spouse and abides there throughout. A life partner like this is great in real life but less interesting on the stage. The lack of chemistry between these two performers further dampens involvement in their story. There are scenes where the pair are featured in playful proximity, yet the characters never show real intimacy or affection. Even adoring declamations from David to Anne are expressed from a safe distance.
The production gains vibrancy from the performances of Shah and (especially) Garcia, both featured in a series of cameos depicting forest rangers, rural denizens, the doctors diagnosing Anne, and Katie and her husband Wolf. While the magical realism element of some of these characters isn’t especially engaging, the actors handle it well. Garcia’s exceptional comedic gifts, displayed in a scene near the end, make him a standout.
The production is also a showcase for its gifted tech designers. Nicholas Ponting’s set, consisting of light brown mesh panels suspended from the ceiling, seems unarresting at first, but it later serves as a backdrop for the striking hues in Benedict Conran’s lighting. This design, in tandem with David Murakami’s video projection, reflect the neural pathways that, mysteriously, form the substratum of the human mind. And all the talk about the beauty of nature and the poignancy of that beauty’s passing is expressed ever so delicately and yearningly in John Zalewski’s composition and sound.
IAMA and Boston Court Pasadena, 70 Mentor St., Pasadena. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm, Mon., May 6 & May 20, 8 pm; thru May 26. bostoncourtpasadena.org Running time: one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
