The Memory of Water Reviews
 

A Mother Runs through Them
Santa Barbara Independent

By Charles Donelan

Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water is a difficult play that offers multiple opportunities for actors to shine. The show, which won the Olivier Award for best new comedy in 2000, has since gone on to attract attention for its strong, character-driven exploration of three sisters’ feelings at the death of their mother. During the course of a snowy winter’s day and night, as they reminisce, sort through their mother’s flamboyant wardrobe, drink, and smoke, the sisters are visited by two men and a ghost. Stephanie Zimbalist plays Mary, the sister who has become an important medical doctor doing neurological research. Her portrayal of the stereotypical sacrifice of family for career is nuanced and psychologically acute. In her scenes with her married lover, a fellow doctor named Mike, Zimbalist keeps one guessing about what her character’s next reaction or transformation will be. Westmont College’s Mitchell Thomas, listed in the program as Mitchell McLean, as Mike does a terrific job keeping up as Zimbalist builds from a simmering initial appearance in a hat and shades to a full boil of dramatic energy. Laurie Walters is Teresa, the responsible married sister who owns a health food store with her laconic husband, Fred (Leonard Kelly-Young). Teresa rockets from obsessively arranging her mother’s impending funeral in the opening scene to ultimately drunkenly parading her intimate knowledge of sordid family secrets. Walters finds a steady balance between Teresa’s alternating bouts of utter recklessness and stressed-out self-control.

As Catherine, the youngest sister, Emma-Jane Huerta creates a whirlwind of intoxication, neuroses, and one-liners, all delivered in a spot-on accent. Bairbre Dowling brings otherworldly restraint and dignity to her portrayal of Vi, the ghost of the mother whose influence underlies virtually everything that happens. Director Jenny Sullivan has done an admirable job with the material, which, for all its fluency, remains a sometimes perplexing mix of comedy and tragedy, with too much weighty metaphysical speculation thrown in by its scientifically minded author. For theatergoers interested in seeing adults acting the way they do when confronted by the death of a parent — which is to say, irrationally — this is a brave contribution to the literature of grief.