"Grace and Glorie"

March 19, 2016 — On a cold final day of winter, I was in Meredith, New Hampshire, for another live performance at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. After lunch at Giuseppe's and some time to kill, I went for a stroll along the lakefront. It's been one of the warmest winters on record with no snow to be seen hardly anywhere in the southern third of the state, but on this day, with spring less than twenty-four hours away, the temperature was in the thirties with a bone-chilling wind. In spite of this brief cold snap, ice-out, the day the last of the ice disappears from  Lake Winnipesaukee, was declared yesterday, the earliest that has happened since record-keeping began.

"Grace and Glorie" by Tom Ziegler is being staged by the "Winni." Directed by Timothy L'Ecuyer, the two-woman play is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in the fall. Grace (Barbara Webb) is 90 years old, illiterate, and suffering from terminal cancer. Gloria (Molly Parker Myers), who Grace insists on calling Glorie, is a hospice volunteer assigned to Grace's case.

Gloria is a native of New York City with an MBA and a wealthy lawyer husband. They have relocated to this part of Virginia for reasons that are revealed late in the play. She couldn't be more out of her element or ill-at-ease as she is in Grace's run-down one-room house, realistically imagined by set designer David Towlun, with a water pump and wood stove, a table and a few chairs and a bed in which Grace spends most of her time.

The two women get on each other's nerves as Gloria is frustrated by Grace's refusal to accept her help. Grace is offended by Gloria's New York ways, her helplessness in the antiquated kitchen, her sometimes crude language, and her absence of religious faith. Grace misinterprets Glorie's mission. "You're here to help me die?" she asks incredulously.

The two actresses carry the play beautifully. Funny, poignant, sometimes acrimonious, mostly heartwarming, Grace and Glorie bond with each other in spite of the vast differences in their cultures and attitudes. What they do have in common is their humanity. The sophisticated, educated, sometimes pretentious Gloria has much to learn from the blunt, no-nonsense Grace. In the end, they both need comforting, and find they can provide it for each other. The play was a rewarding experience for the audience.