Meg Wallace and Kathy Bell Denton — Photo by Steve Jarrad
Reviewed by Lovell Estell III
The Sherry Theater
Through December 8
There is no shortage of plays and movies that tackle the subject of a sick and/or aging parent or parents who fall into the care of their adult children. Unfortunately, it’s a situation that is too common nowadays. In Unraveled, Jennifer Blackmer mines this all too familiar ground with an imperfect story about the disintegrating relationship between a mother and daughter brought on by illness.
We meet Joy Gallagher (Meg Wallace) in the opening moments when she delivers an obtuse monologue about the possibility of time travel. Joy is an accomplished, well-regarded professor of physics and philosophy. Simultaneously, we see her mother, Old George (Kathy Bell Denton), garbed in a nightgown and accompanied by her caretaker Heidi (Anna Day), digging in her garden. We know something is wrong when Old George runs off screaming to flash her boobs at a neighbor. Shortly thereafter, we learn that she is suffering from cancer and that chemotherapy has brought on an irreversible state of dementia.
The theme of time travel awkwardly resonates throughout this 90-minute play which is structured and narrated via a series of flashbacks. We see interactions between Joy and Young George (Carolyn Crotty) in happier days and in various stages of life: Joy as a young school girl; as an awkward teen anxious about her upcoming prom; Young George as a single mom going on a date, then attempting to launch a career as a writer; Joy as a professor romantically involved with her T.A., a doctoral student named Michael (Jake Jenson) — this last bit doesn’t add much to the story, and in fact is drearily melodramatic. The lack of focus here is glaring. The constant shifts in time, in conjunction with the awkward “split screen,” are often confusing, and they fail to convincingly or effectively advance a coherent narrative.
In spite of the play’s serious structural problems, what is made apparent is that Joy is a woman who is desperately struggling with personal and career issues, and that the distance between the woman she knew and loved as her mother, and the woman who has now disappeared into the fog of dementia is painfully untraversable.
Cast performances under the direction of Steve Jarrad are all satisfactory.
The Sherry Theater, 11052 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Dec. 8. (323) 860-6569 or https://unraveled.bpt.me. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
