newjerseynewsroom.com

Mary Louise Wilson plays a salt-of-the-earth grandma in a tender new play

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Amy Herzog’s “4000 Miles” presents a tender, understated story about an elderly woman and her grandson who are far apart in many ways but gradually relate to each other in spite of their obvious distance in age and experience. It is a gentle and beautiful play that is gently and beautifully performed.

“4000 Miles” was originally staged last June by LCT3, which is Lincoln Center Theater’s ongoing series that benefits developing writers and audiences alike by offering first-class shows for a $20 ticket. The production proved so rewarding that the company transferred it to the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, where the show opened on Monday.

This contemporary drama is loosely tied to the playwright’s earlier “After the Revolution,” which studied a Manhattan clan of long-time lefties dealing with ghosts lingering from the Red Scare troubles of the 1950s. The character of Vera, the widow of a martyr of the progressive movement, now reappears in “4000 Miles.”

Living alone in her Greenwich Village apartment, Vera is surprised by the unexpected arrival of her 21-year-old grandson, Leo, who has just finished a cross-country bicycle trek marred by the accidental death of his closest friend along the way. Quietly shattered, uncertain about his journey in life, Leo gradually bonds with the kindly Vera, who is a feisty soul dealing with increasing decrepitude.

“You know, there are a lot of bad things about getting old, but the worst is not being able to find my words,” says 91 year-old Vera, who often grasps upon “whaddayacallit” to complete her thoughts. “I just hate not being able to find my words, I feel like an idiot half the time.”

Leo proves to be rather inarticulate himself and the 100-minute play’s ten short scenes see him try to rekindle his romance with an ex-girlfriend (Zoe Winters) and otherwise process his grief. Among Leo’s experiences is a droll late night encounter with a flirtatious art student (the riotous Greta Lee) who he fails to bed. A scruffy, gangling beanpole, Gabriel Ebert is boyish and soulful as the melancholy Leo.

The veteran actress Mary Louise Wilson depicts in every poignant way Vera as a physically frail but resilient woman who empathizes with her grandson’s troubles while not completely understanding them.