A day after opening night of The Cemetery Club at Olympia Little Theatre, my objective and subjective selves are still debating its merits. From a technical standpoint, the show has grievous shortcomings. It's blocked so we spend much of our time gazing at actors' hair instead of their faces. The program tells us we're in "the present," but the costumes look better suited to the script's 1990 debut. I hated the final sound cue; it arrived too early, too loud and through a gurgle of distortion. Set designer Matthew Moeller finds a clever way to bounce us back and forth between a Queens apartment and a nearby cemetery; two video screens, however, add nothing but confusion to the stage manager's booth.
In the interest of fairness, I should note Cemetery's initial director dropped out, obliging Kendra Malm to take over with three weeks to go before curtain. A couple of actors left as well, so Linda Randell had the same three weeks to absorb the lead role of Lucille. It'd be an overwhelming challenge for any actor, but I know from personal experience that getting older doesn't make the memorization any easier.
It doesn't make anything easier, does it? We theater folk often comment on the advanced years of our "gray-hair" patron base, then stay as far away from plays about aging as we can. Instead, we trot out Grease for the umpty-umpth time, as if nostalgia for the 1950s (or, more accurately, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John) could temporarily render older patrons incapable of sensing their own infirmities. Good luck with that. I'm two decades younger than these characters, but even I can't leave my creaking knees at home. The thing I appreciate most about Ivan Menchell's dramedy is that it addresses senior concerns head on: familiar faces in the daily obituaries, the loneliness of widowhood, health scares, a gathering feeling of irrelevance. It may not be a terribly uplifting play, but at least it has the virtue of candor.
There are line flubs, sure. I've heard less covering in Beatlemania. The uncertainty lengthens an already-too-long show to 2:30 plus intermission. Still, it's a tribute to OLT's veteran leads that I almost never knew who went up. The actors remain locked into each other, ad-libbing credibly till the needed words tumble from their cerebral cortices and the show can slip back onto its tracks. The acting here is often quite good, especially (though not exclusively) that of Lark Church as Ida and Tom Lockhart as Sam. Lanita Grice is a molecule over the top as Mildred, but her scene adds levity to an awkward beat.
The Cemetery Club may not be for everyone, especially our 20-something readers or their kids. But I caught it on my 46th birthday, and yeah, I related all too well.
THE CEMETERY CLUB, 7:55 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 1:55 p.m. Sunday, through June 22, Olympia Little Theatre, 1925 Miller Ave. NE, Olympia, $10-$14, 360.786.9484
