Not So Musical Monday: The Waverly Gallery
Spoilers: The following review contains spoilers on the plot of The Waverly Gallery. I don’t think knowing these would affect one’s enjoyment, but you’ve been warned.
There are times when you see a show that has some aspect that either hits so close to home or resonates with you in such a manner that it makes it hard to be objective about the rest of the play. This could be positive. This could be negative. Either way—there is something about a show that makes you never forget it. For me, The Waverly Gallery was a play that made me cry more than I ever cried in a theater before. I think that’s a good thing.
The Waverly Gallery is told from the perspective of a grandson dealing with his grandmother’s descent into dementia. He says early on that she deteriorated in her final two years of life. Elaine May, playing the grandmother, still has incredible comedic timing at 86 years old. She fills all moments of quiet with questions—often the exact same inane questions she has asked just moments before yet had forgotten the answer. Her insistence her grandson worked at a newspaper became a running line despite the fact he didn’t actually work at a newspaper. Her amazing comedic performance becomes a tragically accurate portrayal as her memory issues become less funny and sadder as the play goes on. She is a woman trapped inside her mind, and we feel her fear. More than anything, I felt like I was watching my own grandmother on stage.
When I last saw my grandmother at Christmas, it was the first time she didn’t recognize me. I said hello and I could see behind her eyes that she didn’t know who I was. When my mom came into the room, she recognized my mom. I think my grandmother eventually put together that I was my mom’s son, but she didn’t really know me. For the past few years, conversations with my grandmother are cyclical. She always asks if I’m dating anyone. She has met my girlfriend more than once. She is always shocked that I’m in New York. I moved here in 2016. She is so excited to hear that I’m an attorney. I started law school in the fall of 2013—a time when her memory was perfectly fine. She remembers less and less.
When I watched Elaine May, I didn’t see her character. I saw Mimi. I saw Mimi deteriorating in front of me on stage. I saw where she’s been. I heard conversations my family has had with her and about her. I saw the sadness in my mom’s eyes in dealing with her own mother, and I saw the things that were once funny turning sadder and sadder. The grandson says something towards the end of the play—that it wasn’t until years later that they started remembering his grandmother for who she was. They remembered her for who she was when she was living. I hope I get that back too. I want to remember my grandmother always offering me more food despite my insistent denials that I could eat another bite. I want to remember her always having Neapolitan ice cream cartons and calling them Napoleon. I want to remember her for the woman she is not what she has become.
Kenneth Lonergan wrote a wonderfully funny, beautifully sad play. You can read other reviews to learn about the performances, the setting, the staging. All I can say is that Elaine May’s performance will stick with me for a long time. It was set in a different time and a different place, but I watched a play about my family. I cried. I cried a lot. Silent tears throughout almost the entire second act because I knew where it was going. Because I’ve known where it has been going for years.