Ember Women’s Theatre’s masterful world premiere of Chris Sherman’s Life Alert, directed by Michelle Batt with Vicki Andronis as assistant director, opened at MadLab this weekend.
The play zooms in on Annie (Melissa Bair) as she and husband Ben’s (Jim Azelvandre) retirement is thrown into confusion by Annie’s mother’s (Josie Merkel) need to recuperate after a fall and with some sometimes-worse-than-no-help-at-all help from her brother Joey (Joe Lusher) and Joey’s wife Karen (Jenn Barlup).
Sherman’s play focuses on a tight timeframe within the four walls of Annie and Ben’s apartment. Annie’s play having gotten the attention of a prestigious festival but with revisions due soon is a canny narrative device that acts as the classic ticking bomb but also as a reward she needs to claim space for herself to grab.
Batt’s direction stretches that tension out and amplifies the claustrophobia of the world of the play having shrunk to the apartment, reinforcing the reminders in the text of just how much of the world gets refracted and magnified in our most intimate relationships and our living spaces. She imbues everyone with a nervous energy as they try to avoid each other without seeming to try to avoid one another.
Tiny nods to the ways this family creates space for themselves are studded throughout the production – and charming set with no scenic designer credited but, in a nice touch the program includes a mention of what the actors contributed and cites everyone who worked on the construction – and they build and spark without feeling ostentatious and without ever sacrificing naturalism.
The relationship between Bair’s Annie and Merkel’s mother Rose is the beating heart of Life Alert and they deliver two of the finest performances I’ve seen all year. Bair balances Annie’s intense dedication to finding something that will keep her relevant and leave a mark on the world, something of hers, with not wanting to let anyone down – her obligations as a mother and a wife. She reminds us of that almost impossible pressure without tricks, without having to write it in neon. Her breakdown feels crushingly real and so do all the quieter moments leading up to it.
Merkel navigates her character’s shifts – the forgetfulness, the anger at the world for making her feel like a burden, the anger at her children for not being more understanding, more heavily focused on her daughter, the anger at herself for not being who she used to be, and fiery humor leavened by a deep heart – with balletic grace and precision. There’s a sequence where the family thinks Mom is oblivious that reduced me to tears and kept snowballing, I just couldn’t look away.
The other three characters have less time and space within the play – and the implication Sherman’s writing and Batt’s direction never let us forget that this is balanced by much more time and space out of the apartment in the wider world – but they’re all fully formed flesh and blood people. Azelvandre’s Ben tries, in his way, to be a good partner, a sympathetic ear, some help in this time of crisis, and Azelvandre’s delightful portrayal helps keep Ben from being a sitcom-helpless cliche, but it underlines how low the bar of “doing our best” is for we men.
Lusher’s Joey is a little more cartoonish, but he gives the character enough weight that his palpable frustration with not having been asked for help sooner and that he might be making things worse, ring true but don’t let the character off the hook. Barlup’s Karen tries to navigate a family dynamic she’s come into as an outsider and she gives the character the warmth, sincerity, and sense of fun she needs.
Sherman’s play is deeply concerned with who society considers disposable, whose work matters and whose doesn’t, and how demoralizing that gets. How deeply baked into so many of our consciouses those biases are, how they feel like pollution in the air we breathe and how a woman saying “Am I expected to sacrifice my life” for others’ needs, putting it in the world out loud, is still a radical and necessary act. The ending gets a little more obvious and underlined than anything else but it’s a minor blip after two hours – with one intermission – that rang so true.
Life Alert takes a story most of us have seen before and many of us have lived – my grandmother moved in with my parents around the time my mom retired, and my mom took care of her until she needed more robust medical care – and makes it glow with a freshness born from such finely chiseled characters, beautifully acted. The specificity and rhythms of the language tossed me into the night chewing on these themes in ways which will echo long after I submit this review.
Life Alert runs through November 13 with performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at MadLab (227 N. Third St. Downtown). For tickets and more information, visit emberwomens.com.