‘Pru Payne’: As the memories dim, love blooms

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By Rich Fahey

BOSTON – There may be nothing crueler in life than having a loved one slip away due to a cognitive disease. The various conditions —   dementia, Alzheimer’s, Lewy’s  body dementia —                              — put their victims in  versions of hell,  a hell which may play out over many years.

In SpeakEasy Stage’s production of Steven Drukman’s “Pru Payne,” two strangers in the throes of memory decline find solace with each other, and an unlikely romance blooms.

“Pru Payne” functions as a master’s class in acting by the two principals: Karen MacDonald, the award-winning actor who portrays critic Pru Payne, and Gordon Clapp, an Emmy winner for his longtime role as Det. Greg Medavoy in “NYPD Blue” who plays custodian Gus Cudahy.  Earlier this year, Clapp earned strong reviews for his portrayal of Robert Frost in “Robert Frost: This Verse Business.”

That is not to slight the three other actors in this uniformly fine cast. Marianna Bassham is Dr. Dolan, who is highly-focused as she researches cognitive conditions at Brook Hollow, a New England clinic, where Pru and Gus are among her patients. De’Lon Grant and Greg Maraio play their sons, Thomas Payne and Art Cudahy.

MacDonald’s versatility dating back to her time as a stalwart American Repertory Theater before branching out to many other local theaters is truly impressive; I vividly recall the one-woman “Red-Hot Patriot” at Lyric Stage, where she channeled the fiery political commentator Molly Ivins.

Prudence “Pru” Payne is a woman of letters and a cultural icon who often finds herself  “agog with alliteration,” which she shows off with great deftness. Through the years, she has been writing reviews across the artistic spectrum, not pulling any punches, and letting the chips fall where they may. She has decided to craft an autobiography/memoir that is highly anticipated.

She is surprised when she receives an award from an arts group and launches into a  long, wandering acceptance speech that becomes increasingly unhinged. Two weeks later, she is still in a  memory care facility her son has taken her to to be evaluated.

Thus begins the journey as Pru struggles against the incoming tide to simply “re-member” as her former world slips away, It is a magnificently nuanced performance, which ranks among the best MacDonald has given in her career.

Clapp’s Gus, the custodian at a fancy boarding school is an unvarnished sort, whose corny humor and stories would have seemed abhorrent to an earlier version of Pru. But his continued urges to “stop thinking too much” and good humor strike a chord with  Pru, who grew up wealthy and privileged on the Upper East Side of New York City

Drukman, a native of Newton and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has set his play in1988, a year which saw George H.W. Bush elected president, which Drukman explained in an  interview was a time the nation began  devolving into a “collective amnesia” from which it has never recovered.

A sub-plot in the play is devoted to another pairing that seems unlikely at first: a relationship between Thomas and Art, who were baseball teammates at the boarding school where Gus works. Thomas has become a writer , while Art, like his father, is a bit roughhewn  and is working as a dog breeder. Drukman doesn’t have the same luck in fleshing out this relationship, which takes place during a fraught time: The AIDS epidemic. The scenes between Thomas and Art and their parents provide some of Drukman’s best work.

Adding to the poignancy of this production, the director is Paul Daigneault, SpeakEasy’s founder and artistic director, in his penultimate assignment before his role with the troupe ends with this season. The fringe theater that he founded in 1992 has become one of the most respected mid-sized theaters in the area, winning major awards and co-producing with The Huntington, among others. Here Daigneault helps MacDonald find her inner strength for the wrenching final scenes, set 20 years later in 2008.

There is little doubt that “Pru Payne” will resonate strongly with those of us who have lost a loved one due to a cognitive illness; my mother passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s, and her late brother, my uncle, had a similar condition.

But it will also resonate strongly with anyone who believes that love, in its many forms, always improves the human condition. I saw that in my father visiting my mother in her nursing home each day, even long after she no longer recognized him.

At the end of “Pru Payne,” Gus and Pru engage in a  lovely dance to the Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.”  May we all have a chance to exit the stage that way some day.

The SpeakEasy Stage production of “Pru Payne.” Written by Steven Drukman. Directed by Paul Daigneault. Scenic design by Christopher Swader and Justin Swader. Costume design by Charles Schoonmaker. Lighting design by Aja M. Jackson. Sound design and original music by Nathan Leigh. At the Boston Center for the Arts through Nov. 16. Speakeasystage.com.