Jordan Wright
September 22, 2013
Special to Alexandria Times
Given its title one might imagine Arena Stage’s Artistic Director Molly Smith deliberately timed this piece to reflect the beginning of the fall season. But The Velocity of Autumn, a play Smith also directs, is not about the calendar. It is a poignant metaphor on the human condition.
Estelle Parsons as Alexandra and Stephen Spinella as Chris in The Velocity of Autumn – Photo by Teresa Wood
Estelle Parsons plays Alexandra, a crusty old gal living out her days in the Brooklyn brownstone where she raised her three children. She has jerry-rigged her home’s interior with barricades and Molotov cocktails strung together like party lights in order to keep the police, summoned by two of her children, from carting her off to a nursing home. In short she’s preparing to blow herself up and take her Park Slope neighborhood with her.
Once a successful artist Alexandra wants to spend the rest of her life among her books and records in her own home. Her children have other ideas as to where she should live. The two-person play (with phone updates from the panicked siblings), an often-prickly conversation between Christopher and his mother, is weighted with gallows humor. “I will set myself on fire,” she threatens, toying with an old Zippo lighter while grasping a homemade explosive. “Then I’ll bring the marshmallows,” Christopher quips, modeling his mother’s dark sense of humor. I won’t reveal the dramatic early entry of the long absent Christopher, tasked by his overly meddlesome siblings, Michael and Jennifer, to talk their mother down from her end-of-the-world scenario. But I will say it clarifies the autumnal reference.
The story is a tender exercise in patience and reconciliation as Alexandra and her estranged son create new bonds while revealing their darkest fears and reflecting on their lives. Snappy one-liners abound, keeping the dialogue from mawkish sentimentality, “Getting you out of diapers was like the Bataan Death March!” While philosophies on aging keep it real, “Old age is just one big surprise. You never know who you are until you get up!”
Estelle Parsons as Alexandra in The Velocity of Autumn – Photo by Teresa Wood
Parsons, best known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Bonnie and Clyde and as Mother Bev on TV’s sitcom Rosanne, has kept her theatre presence active, not only by directing, but also by taking roles scripted by the American theatre’s most revered playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee. Her portrayal of Alexandra, a woman of fierce determination, complexity and above all a wry sense of humor, proves that she is one of America’s most brilliant, and funniest, actors.
Stephen Spinella comes to the role of Christopher with a shelf’s worth of Tony and Drama Desk Awards. His sensitive performance as the wayward son returning to the fold to mitigate disaster and reconnect with his mother, is genuine and deeply affecting.
Playwright Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn, part of a trilogy of “Alexandra” plays, gives us a memorable night of pure, unadulterated theatre that will resonate mightily – – not only with caregivers and the elderly, but for all those seeking grace and meaning in a fast-moving world.
The Velocity of Autumn at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Illustration by André Carrilho
Through October 20th at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., SW, Washington, DC 20024. For tickets and information call 202 484-0247 or visit www.ArenaStage.org.
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