Grace and Glorie

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Determined, lonely, bitter, hiding behind a "crustified" sense of humor, Grace Stiles impatiently waits in her tiny cottage for death to crawl in through a gapping hole claiming her miserable life.

The timing couldn't be more perfect for Tom Ziegler's perceptive play, Grace & Glorie, to come to life at Miners Alley Playhouse. Two weekends remain, and if you haven't seen it yet, it is a definite DO NOT MISS.

Miner Alley's production of Grace and Glorie Photo Credit: Sarah Roshan/Trulife Photography

In a polarized country, where ideologies box themselves in, where tolerance gets squeaked out, where misunderstanding thrives on sticking its tongue out at different points of view, the awesome Grace & Glorie shines a bright light on what happens when two entirely different people allow themselves to come face to face, eyeball to eyeball, unraveling their fears, lost dreams, and disappointments to spread across the small cottage floor.

Directed by Robert Kramer, Grace & Glorie is one of the most beautifully produced productions to grace the Miners Alley stage.

Billie McBride disappears behind the feisty, tormented Grace bringing her to chilling deliberate life. So much so, that following an early performance, one audience member wanted to meet Grace. Out came McBride with her large bight eyes, cunning smile, and enthusiastic demeanor. No, no, no. She didn't want to meet McBride. She wanted to meet Grace. McBride had left Grace on stage. What a testament to understanding what happens when an actor owns a character. However, it isn't clear if McBride owns Grace or Grace owns McBride.

Checking herself out of the hospital, the cantankerous, illiterate 90-year-old woman seeks whatever solace she can conjure in her homestead cottage. If she won't go to the hospice, then hospice will come to her. Glorie, straight from the successful high life of New York, a professionalized rule monger, intelligent, knowing what to do and when, is given Grace as her first hospice assignment. Grace forgot her medication at the hospital. No problem. Rules are rules, and she'd see to it that Grace got them and took them, and obeyed all doctors' orders.

Kendra Crain MCGovern's embodiment of Glorie tears at the heart with smiles as the professional facade melts with a rattle at her feet. Health care workers want to be appreciated just by showing up. Not this time. She finds a Grace who doesn't want her there, doesn't want her help, and doesn't want anyone to bother her. She's just fine, thank you very much, "now just go away and leave me alone." "Well, no, don't go away. I really need you. I just can't tell you flat out."

The combination of McBride and McGovern was a brilliant casting decision. Sparks fly, uneasiness makes the spine shiver. Light the wood stone, are you kidding? Use an antique bowl as a bedpan, are you sure? What do you mean, 'feed those pecking chickens?' The characterizations so beautifully written, the camaraderie between actors, and the electrical charge between characters takes the breath away as they squirm, argue, fidget, and slowly, oh, so slowly, begin to see each other down to the soles of their souls.

The Cast of Grace and Glorie. Photo Credit: Sarah Roshan/Trulife Photography

If it can happen to Grace and Glorie, it can happen to anyone. If it can happen in a heart breaking destruction of a once glorious apple orchard giving way to progress, in a run down cottage, it can happen anywhere. With timed determination, people from different strains of life can meet each other, learn to appreciate each other, and discover the magic of life on their own terms. It does not come easy, not without anger, reflection, and a willingness to be honest, a willingness to let vulnerabilities show themselves in all their glory.

Grace's crustiness allows plenty of opportunity to laugh and shudder, sometimes at the same moment. A year ago Grace broke her hip, and tests found cancer. Of course, she doesn't need help. She has her nephew, Ray who works at the Texaco down the road. OK, so he isn't all that responsible.

Religious beliefs are one thing, owning the belief is a different story. Glorie forces Grace to question that which she never had to question. Success and failure rear their tragic-comedy heads snorting dragon's breath. Life and death play in and out of the sometime tormented conversations. Grace watched five sons and her husband die. No one ever told her she was beautiful except a young clergyman many years before. Glorie held her 12-year-old son as he lay dying after a car accident. Grace waits uneasily for death. Glorie awakens from a self-imposed death of her own choosing. As a volunteer, Glorie appears to offer help, but is often the case the one who helps thinks favorite food from New York feeds hunger, when Velveeta and white bread is all that is wanted. It is most difficult to feed when hunger squeezes the giving. Glorie learns that the hard way, but she learns it.

The connected stellar performances from McBride and McGovern stand alone in their own realm, without match.

Richard H. Pegg's set design of the cottage's interior reminds some audience members of a relative's life with wood stoves. Glorie's anxiety over lighting it is met with shudders of standing face to face with a wood stove fraught with anxiety of even touching it, much less lighting it. On the other side are memories of those who grew up with a wood stove fighting the same anxiety over facing an electric stove. Funny how what one is use to becomes the accepted norm. No fear in the familiar is there? Ah, the same with people.

Charity Dorrance's lighting design and sound effects from crushing bulldozes to cackling chickens, turns Miners Alley into a canyon in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. You can smell the apple orchard, and the exhaust from the bulldozers, and you cringe from the smiles of the developers who took the crusty old lady for a ride. Throats in the audience tighten at the same time when Glorie's purposeful life unravels with tears streaming down her cheeks. You want to forget you're in a theatre and rush to the stage to give her a much-wanted hug.

This is theatre at its finest, education at its most brilliant, and experience at its most meaningful. Once Grace and Glorie have touched you, life cannot possibly be the same. If it is, maybe you just need to experience it again.

These characters are so real, so honest, and so vulnerable you will want to meet them. The truth is, after a performance, you already have.

Grace & Glorie
By Tom Ziegler; Directed by Robert Kramer