Images of 'Grace and Glorie" set

‘Grace & Glorie’ offers funny, heart-tugging look at life and death

By Joanna Wilson Towery
Theatre reviewer

In Grace & Glorie, the Kent County Theatre Guild¹s season closer, the
setup might sound a bit familiar – a New York Yankee moves to the country, encounters a simple bumpkin and feels like a fish out of water < well, make that running water – till they get to know each other.

But in this case, the salt-of-the-earth "redneck" is a 90-year-old woman
in the last days of battling cancer while the city slicker is a 40-something
former businesswoman-turned-hospice-volunteer mortally wounded by life’s ups and downs.

Yep, Grace & Glorie is definitely a drama – that is, when you're not
busy laughing. In the tradition of some of the Guild's best dramas, the play
wins your heart by tickling your funnybone, then tugs your heartstrings as
it draws you into the characters’ inner lives.

At first farm girl Grace Stiles and wealthy Gloria Whitmore have trouble
connecting. "Glorie," as Grace dubs her, bursts into Grace’s one-room
cottage and encounters a woodstove, hand pump and live chickens; Grace turns up her nose at Glorie’s fancy food and rolls her eyes at her inexperience. But by the end, not only have they found common ground, they have also discovered they are not so different after all, having exchanged country faith and city sensibility as they come to grips with the big issues of life and death.

The show marks a welcome return to the Guild’s stage of Marlynn
Hedgecock and Donna Watson, two veteran actresses who inhabit their roles like they’ve known them all their lives. Both are more than up to the
challenge laid down by this dialog-laden two-person play.

A Guild member for more than 50 years, Hedgecock brings a potent
presence that makes Grace very real and human, and she lends her all the
right nuances, from her hills-of-Virginia accent to the subtle effects of
her age and condition to her lightly played, common-sensically sage
observations.

Always a strong and solid performer with more than 25 shows on her
resume, Watson breathes vital life into all of Gloria’s complexities and
seeming contradictions. Together, the well-matched pair tag team the
audience from roaring chuckles to nodding tears.

At the helm is a familiar face both onstage and backstage: John Morris.
His direction is so deft and sure, it’s hard to believe this is his debut in
the big chair. He already knows how to draw the best from his cast, how to
pace the action just so and when to tune up the intensity.

And one final note: kudos to the set crew, who have created a perfectly
realized, lived-in cottage that does much to enhance the believability of
the characters.

Grace & Glorie continues at the Patchwork Playhouse on Roosevelt Avenue
in Dover with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays April 28 and 29
and May 5 and 6, with a 3 p.m. matinee Sunday, April 30. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for seniors and students. For reservations or information,
call 674-3568 or visit www.kctg.org.

Life-affirming themes draw strength from death

Hospice worker, dying woman forge bond
By JEFF MURPHY
Special to The News Journal
04/25/2006

DOVER -- Those unfamiliar with the concept of hospice, the special at-home care service for terminally ill patients, get an interesting primer with the Kent County Theatre Guild's latest theatrical product "Grace and Glorie."

Tom Ziegler's two-woman drama combines touches of "The Odd Couple" with a fish-out-of-water story to create a touching portrait of life's ironic twists.

Diagnosed with an inoperable cancer is 90-year-old Grace Stiles (Marlynn H. Hedgecock), a self-described "backwoods redneck" who's returned to her family's Blue Ridge Mountain cottage after a lengthy hospital stay. Delivering the pain medicine Grace left behind is ex-businesswoman Gloria Whitmore (Donna Watson), an urbane hospice volunteer recently relocated from New York on her third case assignment.

The two get off to a rocky start, but once the bedridden but spirited Grace gets over her initial suspicions of Gloria's motives, the two share some interesting icebreaker moments. As trust sets in, and Grace starts calling her visitor "Glorie," they learn more about each other and the caregiver -- struggling with a wood-burning stove, ruining her manicure and obsessing with guilt over her young son's death -- often requires more attention than the patient.

Gloria eventually becomes interested in helping Grace with more than just managing her pain and cleaning her bedpan. Her business instincts kick in when she suspects Grace is getting cheated in a deal to sell her beloved land and apple orchard to a developer.

With just the two characters, this full-length play is obviously a demanding physical and mental challenge for the actresses. Ziegler's dialogue favors Grace as the crabby, unwilling patient but provides Gloria with some revealing moments of her own that cover complex and dangerous emotional territories.

Hedgecock takes this edge, runs with it and supplies a command performance as Grace. She is totally convincing, even as some scenes have her immobile with pain and others find her moving ably and even picking apples. She weaves all the character's qualities -- her vulnerabilities, stubbornness and religious zeal -- into a fabric that is entertaining, rich and believable.

Watson makes a valiant effort with her portrayal of the conflicted Gloria and makes the most of the introspective moments the author gives her. She struggles, however, with the physicality of the role and is best when not flitting nervously around the small space or making a frantic sweep of the stage.

First-time director John Morris emphasizes each character's internal conflict over the interplay between them, but not distractingly so, and finds a good balance between the play's serious and joyful themes. The staging could be tighter, for at one point Gloria could not open a door in time for Grace to tell her to close it.

The cottage set interior has an appropriate half-finished look and a cramped feel, with framing at the back and wood planks for walls. A working well-water pump and a smoking stove complete the rustic atmosphere of the place.

The scene changes take place to a soundtrack of Appalachia-flavored bluegrass music, and the play's action is frequently interrupted by the sound of buzz saws hacking away at the land's oak and apple trees.

Many of the play's themes are treatises on death and the circle of life, but it's not off-putting. The two share enough life experience -- such as outliving their children -- that their other differences become secondary. The sum of this drama's parts is a life-affirming salute that spans generations.

Jeff Murphy is a Wilmington freelance writer.


 

 

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