Think about being almost 80 (if you are not there already). One moment you are 20, and whoosh, you are almost 80. How did you get there, where did the minutes, hours and days go?
That is the story playwright Eric Coble tells in The Velocity of Autumn. It’s a familiar tale, well told with humor and truth. And to some, it will hit a little too close to home.
Alexandra (Susan Greenhill) realizes that, at 79, she is at a point where she needs help with the basic tasks of daily life. Her adult daughter and son have decided she should move to a nursing home. Alexandra loves her brownstone in Brooklyn with all her comfortable memories and belongings and refuses the suggestion. She barricades herself into her apartment, rigs the place with Molotov cocktails and threatens to blow the building up if they try and move her.
Alexandra is not senile; she is feisty and alert other than a memory and energy loss here and there. For the most part she has always been independent. Then her estranged son Chris (Mark Anderson Phillips), who hasn’t made an appearance in her life for the past 20 years is called to arbitrate. He climbs a tree and enters through her window to try and relax the situation. Greenhill and Phillips play off each other superbly, each one making points with their strong reasoning.
Giovanna Sardelli smoothly directs Greenhill and Phillips— two fine actors. Andrew Boyce’s set depicts the weighty accumulation in an apartment inhabited by the same person for the past 45 years.
As usual, Theatre Works brings us a fine production with The Velocity of Autumn.
Camille Bounds can be reached at: bo******@co********.net.
‘The Velocity Of Autumn’
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
500 Castro Street, Mountain View
Performances through June 26
Tickets: (650) 463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org
