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Mary Louise Wilson depicts a salt-of-the-earth grandma in Amy Herzog’s new play

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

A touching new play by Amy Herzog, “4000 Miles” is an understated yet wise contemporary story about an elderly woman and her grandson who may be far apart in many ways but tenderly relate to each other in spite of their obvious distance in years and experience.

Opening on Monday at The Duke, “4000 Miles” is the latest production by LCT3, which is Lincoln Center Theater’s ongoing series that benefits developing writers and audiences alike by offering first-class shows for a bargain $20 ticket.

This play is loosely connected to Herzog’s “After the Revolution,” which premiered at Playwrights Horizons last season and regarded a Manhattan family of long-time lefties dealing with ghosts arising from the Communist black-listings of the 1950s. I wasn’t as crazy about it as some colleagues, but Lois Smith was notable as the feisty widow of a perhaps not-so-noble martyr of the progressive movement.

That character, Vera, now reappears in “4000 Miles” as portrayed with great salt-of-the-earth veracity by Mary Louise Wilson, who nabbed a well-deserved Tony Award several years back as the maddening old mama in the musical “Grey Gardens.”

Living alone in her Greenwich Village apartment, Vera is surprised by the unannounced arrival of her 21-year-old grandson Leo who has just completed a cross-country bicycle trek interrupted by the accidental death of a good friend along the way. Quietly grieving and at a loss about what to do with his future, Leo is a sweet guy who bonds with the crotchety but fond Vera, who is irritated by increasing decrepitude.

“You know, the worst thing about getting old, and there are a lot of bad things, is not being able to find my words,” says Vera, who frequently falls back on “whaddayacallit” in her conversation. “I just hate not being able to find my words, I feel like an idiot.”

Due to his youth, Leo proves to be somewhat inarticulate himself and the play’s ten brief scenes see him try to reconnect with a girlfriend (Zoe Winters) and otherwise work through his woes. Highlights include a funny interlude with flirtatious Amanda (a hilarious Greta Lee), a tipsy motor-mouth who Leo fails to seduce. Scruffy, lanky Gabriel Ebert is effectively careless and sorrowful as Leo.

Always a pleasure to observe, Wilson beautifully portrays Vera as a physically frail but inwardly tough individual who appreciates her grandson’s troubles while not completely comprehending them.