Stage 3’s Grace and Glorie is Captivating by Wayne Kirkbride
Stage 3’s Grace and Glorie is Captivating by Wayne Kirkbride 
Bring two completely different personalities together as strangers, add personal tragedies and pending death for one, and watch the chemistry begin to change both of them. In the play by Tom Zieglar, which made its TV debut in 1998 on CBS’ Hallmark Hall of Fame starring Gena Rowlands and Diane Lane, the Stage 3 audience becomes immersed in the heartwarming and emotional story of two women who couldn’t be more different from each other except for a common personal loss in each of their lives.
In the play, Stage 3 has created a set of a single room cottage located in rural Virginia. Set designer Ron Cotnam has artistically created the home that hasn’t changed much in over 60 years. The home of Grace Stiles is rustic with a wood cooking stove, a hand water pump in the kitchen, an old bed and frame, and the toilet located on the porch outside. The only concessions to modern times are electricity, which powers her toaster and lights, a telephone, and not much more. Even her refrigerator appeared to be an icebox circa 1920s.
Grace, 90 years old and just returning to her home from the hospital, is terminally ill. She is resigned to leave this world without a complaint or demand. Gloria (called Glorie by Grace) is a volunteer Hospice worker who is a newly transplanted New Yorker who seems to be trying hard to assist Grace in spite of Grace’s protest that she doesn’t need help. We begin to see the developing clash of personalities when Grace grudgingly accepts Gloria’s daily visits to help her with the basics of toileting, and meal preparation. Grace is alone except for Roy, her grandson who checks in on her infrequently – and for pay from Grace. Set in her ways of living a simple life, one filled with painful loss, but accepting in her words, God’s will, Grace is ready to accept her fate. Gloria comes into her life like the energizer bunny, eager to help her make the transition in an orderly fashion, but confounded by the primitive lifestyle this city dweller is not accustomed to. Nevertheless, Gloria is determined that she is going to help Grace take care of issues neglected, by Gloria’s standards, such as a will and contacting Grace’s only other relative, a thirteen year old great niece.
As each day’s visit from Gloria ends, the transition from one day to the next was handled by cleverly dimming the stage lights while background music played. Costume changes were kept to a minimum. Sound effects were effective depicting a construction crew outside Grace’s home using a bulldozer and chain saws and dynamite to remove the beloved apple trees surrounding the property that Grace recently sold to make way for a new development. Most of Graces’ scenes were with her in her bed and talking with Gloria while she busied herself around the small cottage.
As the two women get to know one another, we are made aware that both suffered personal loss in their lives. Grace lost all five of her sons and Gloria lost her only son just two years prior in an accident. Little by little, with ample humor added to the mix, the two grow more attached to each other as confidences and fears are shared and bottled up grief explodes in the first act with Gloria intimating that she has contemplated suicide to ease her emotional pain. Grace, once content in her beliefs, now begins to question the “whys” in her life. Now she is taken out of her comfort zone by the questions raised by Gloria in her own circumstances. In the second act, reason and calm restored we see Gloria return to assist Grace, not as a Hospice volunteer, but on her own, with a personal commitment to help Grace until the end. The two become closer, and secrets shared by Grace open up more remorse and regrets of a life that could have been more fulfilling.
Both touching and emotional – and funny are the scenes with Gloria applying makeup on Grace for her first time and seeing Grace’s reaction to her face in the mirror. In the end, Gloria has accomplished something that Grace had wished – to document her dying wishes giving a sizeable amount of money to her great niece for her college education. Grace and Gloria both learned from each other that, “it isn’t death that bonds one with another, but life.” The pain that each has suffered in their lives has been assuaged by their time together. Each has helped the other – one to calmly meet death, the other to go on with her life after struggling with remorse and guilt.
Directed by Lloyd Battista, himself a former stage and screen actor who directed last year’s Doubt at Stage 3, this production hits all the human emotions from sorrow to laughter and brings to the audience the time old questions that have always confronted us as to why a higher power allows tragedy to happen. The answers aren’t conclusive in this play, but we learn the importance of dealing with the question by connecting with others and sharing both our love and our grief.
It isn’t simple and always successful to have a play with only two actors. Each must carry their own weight with no other actors to buffer the overall results. Two very believable and talented actors have shown how it can be done. Playing 90-year-old Grace is Sharon Perras, who is younger than her character, yet with skill produces this Virginian crippled by age and cancer who maintains her independence and beliefs to the end. She delivers her lines with feeling, humor, and homespun attitude. Maryann Curmi as Glorie (Gloria) plays her character with the same range, from humor (spitting out a few epithets as when she burns her fingers on the stove); to uncontrollable grief that holds her captive to her son’s tragic death.
Grace and Glorie takes its audience on the realistic journey of issues we all face, or will face in our lifetime. Skillfully integrated in this play as in real life, we see the times of despair, the good times with laughter and joy, and the quiet reflective times within us as we search for the meaning of life’s tragedies. The audience, moved by the experience gave the play and its cast a standing ovation at the conclusion.
Review Score: 4 out of 4 stars
Grace and Glorie will run at Stage 3, 208 S. Green St. in downtown Sonora through October 18. The show will run Thursday through Sunday. Curtain times are 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Ticket prices are $18 Thursday, $20 Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Senior Sundays are $18. Students are always $12. For reservations and information, call 209?536?1778 or visit www.stage3.org.
