Circle Theatre’s Perfect ‘Memory’ a Keeper

By Perry Stewart

Star-Telegram Theater Critic

Fort Worth – There are moments in The Memory of Water when you appreciate the wisdom of Tom Lehrer, who wonders why people who are unable to communicate with each other don’t just shut up about it.

Presently, you realize that English playwright Shelagh Stephenson has deliberately exposed the annoying side of her characters first. She then allows you to understand and like them. That artful maneuver and a handful of top-notch performances make the regional premiere of this 1996 play a rewarding experience for Circle Theatre audiences.

Stephenson, whose An Experiment with an Air Pump was recently applauded at the Dallas Theater Center, builds The Memory of Water around three sisters who return to their mother’s funeral.

Mary (played by Ellen Locy) is a physician dating a married colleague. Teresa (Beth Bontley) and her husband operate a health food store. Catherine (Nicole Case) is an obsessive insecure sleep-around who fears that her current boyfriend is about to dump her.

As rancor builds, Mary asks: “Why do we always argue?”

“We don’t argue,” Teresa snaps. “We Bicker.”

Predictably, family skeletons and secrets emerge as the women compare memories of their parents and of their own pasts. The most shocking mystery revolves around Mary, portrayed with a beguiling mix of candor and enigma by Locy. Teresa is guardian of a related secret blurted out in an exquisitely painful exchange with Mary.

Teresa’s sin, depicted with artful glee by Bontley, is a refreshing duality. On the surface she’s a crisply efficient manager who chants recipes as if they were mantras. Add the merest nip of booze and she’s an astonishingly mean drunk.

No secrets for Catherine, painted in broad and vampy strokes by Case, who gives her character a deliciously quirky mispronunciation of “Xavier.” Case uses Catherine’s blatant self-delusion to convince you she deserves compassion. It’s a tough sell, but Case pulls it off.

She also pulls off her sweater (joined by Locy) in a merry romp of a scene in which the sisters, wondering what to do with their mother’s old clothes, decide to try them on. Costume designer Barbara C. Cox had obvious fun here.

Director Linda K. Leonard guides the mood of the show from slumber party silliness to moments of aching lament, and she does this before you realize it’s happening. Leonard and Kristine Baker accomplish a vastly more subtle effect with the presence of Vi, the mother. Baker paints her in compelling, ever changing hues. (Is that shading only emotional, or does lighting designer John Leach lend a hand?)

The two male actors – Bill Jenkins as Mary’s beau, Andy Gwyn as Teresa’s husband- are more catalysts then satellites. Each has a flashy comic entrance and plenty of wry badinage with his significant other. But Stephenson doesn’t let the guys off the emotional hook. Jenkins is particularly effective in a moment of painful truth with Locy.