Alzheimer's—what a hoot.
Or at least it sorta-is/sorta-isn't in Surviving Grace, Trish Vradenburg's odd-duck, mother-daughter discourse that quacks about family while dipping its bill in a swirl of comedic/dramatic waters.
But it comes up a bit muddy.
A capable production directed by Paul Thornton, Las Vegas Little Theatre's take on this off-Broadway curio is nonetheless saddled with a schizophrenic script that fails to reconcile its tonal extremes, undercutting its impact. Playwright Vradenburg, a veteran sitcom scribe (Kate & Allie, Designing Women, Family Ties), relies entirely too much on quippy TV dialogue that reduces characters to two-dimensional gag-spewers—even if a central character is a sitcom producer. (If this isn't TV Guide enough for you, catch references to Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld, Will & Grace and Larry Hagman's contract holdout on Dallas during the "Who Shot J.R." hysteria.)
Kate C. Lowenhar plays Kate Griswald, aforementioned wisecracking, harried producer who, via flashback monologues, recounts her affectionate but often adversarial relationship with her mother, Grace (Mary O'Brien). This pair is New York-Jewish to the max (Kate's a career-crazed Manhattan gal, Mom lives in New Jersey, accounting for several "Jersey-side" jokes about the George Washington Bridge for us East Coast expats). Their kvetchy sparring is straight out of the long-ago Valerie Harper-Nancy Walker playbook on Rhoda, some of it spry enough to relax us for a night of Neil Simon Lite. But then Grace veers abruptly into the mother's onset of Alzheimer's disease, catching the audience with their pants down.
Yet the yuks keep on coming ... even as Mama descends into senile dementia and Dad (William H. Howard III), after initially caring for his wife of 42 years, abandons her for a bimbo blonde (Lisa Illia) ... even as Grace emerges from her seemingly impenetrable isolation thanks to an untested miracle drug administered by a studly doc (Lee Christian) who's pursuing Kate and wants to demonstrate the difference between "f--king" and "making love," while acknowledging there's no permanent cure for Grace ... even as a rejuvenated Grace heals old wounds with Kate and somehow forgives the ex who dumped her—while attending his nuptials ... even when Grace begins to slide back into irreversible Alzheimer's that will prove fatal.
Yet the yuks—a few genuinely funny, most sitcom-smirky—keep on coming.
And in an accidental but uncomfortable nod to the current news cycle, Surviving Grace echoes the agony of the Terri Schiavo case in this exchange between the doctor and Kate when she resists consenting to her mom's risky drug treatment:
He: "Is there a quality-of-life issue there I'd be tampering with?"
She: "Every breath she takes."
Between the yuks, that is.
Vradenburg attempts an affecting premise—imagining a second chance to slice through the slights, recriminations and resentments that harden like plaque over the relationships we take for granted with those closest to us, and simply tell them we love them—but any significant emotional payoff is lost in a stylistic muddle.
Pleasures, however, crop up in several performances, notably the leads. As the besieged daughter, Lowenhar, a Jersey transplant to Vegas, doesn't break a sweat pulling off the flippant-chick, East Coast 'tude Vradenburg clearly knows much about. Cell-phone addicted and sardonically exasperated as she juggles on-set emergencies, a love life that's an afterthought and a meddlesome mama, Lowenhar remains onstage nearly every moment, her character wearing well. And O'Brien's Grace is a peppery old broad, more likable, perhaps, than even the playwright intended. Credit the actress' warm shadings, at times reminiscent of the treasured Maureen Stapleton. Together, the duo develops a sprightly rapport, like a tennis twosome swapping serves. Among supporting performances, Howard and Illia are goofily funny as postmenopausal lovers acting preadolescent, even if their romance is another part of a whole that doesn't add up, and Christian's down-to-earth doc is a calming counterweight to Lowenhar's frazzled exertions.
It isn't that tragedy can't coexist with comedy, or reality with satire. They collide to create our everyday lives. But coherently linking them onstage in a two-hour narrative is a tricky proposition.
One that some plays survive better than Grace.