Review: BLACKBERRY WINTER Makes Strong Premiere at Forum Theatre, Featuring One of DC's Best Actresses

If I said before that four-time Helen Hayes Award winner Holly Twyford can do anything, her turn at Forum Theatre as a daughter dealing with her mother's life with Alzheimer's Disease in Steve Yockey's BLACKBERRY WINTER, is further evidence of my opinion. Simply put, she gives one of the most honest and well-rounded performances that I've seen on the DC stage this season in this compelling rolling world premiere. Credit must also go to Yockey - who gives her rich, truthful, and well-written material to work with - as well as Director Michael Dove (Forum's Artistic Director) and his design team for creating an immersive and intimate theatrical environment for the story to come to life without too heavy of a hand.

When we first meet Vivienne, she's apologizing for being a really bad person though her story would indicate the opposite is true. Speaking directly to the audience in a mostly deliberate and careful way and mixing humor with frankness, she tells us how her mother's life has changed since being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and accompanying dementia three years ago. The outlook is pretty bleak and she knows how the story will go. Her mother has been living in a very nice assisted living center (which Vivienne dubs the Residence Inn), but an envelope has arrived in the mail and Vivienne frets that it likely contains a letter from the center urging her to consider placing her mother in a nursing home. She resists opening it.

As she procrastinates over opening the envelope, she tells us stories of how she copes with her loving mother's decline (she bakes...seriously bakes), and provides anecdotes about her mother's daily life - both pre-Alzheimer's and now - using a series of everyday objects placed on tables on the sparse stage (Debra Kim Sivigny designed the set/props). Vivienne knows what's happening very well with her mother because she's her managing caregiver. At times, she'll let her polite Southern guard come down ever so slightly, take off the pasted-on smile, and utter an F-bomb or two. Humorously, she puts change in a piggy bank every time this happens. In a rare moment or two, she'll let all of her frustration out, and explain how the experience of seeing her mother's decline is shaping her attitude toward life, death, and suffering, and hugely impacting her own life (and then apologize for being so selfish).

Her monologue is interrupted on three occasions. As a mechanism for coming to terms with what is happening to her mother as a result of this terrible and unforgiving disease, Vivienne created an animal-based origin myth for Alzheimer's (Ahmad Kamal and Sara Dabney Tisdale lend their considerable acting skills to this endeavor as the Gray Mole and White Egret), and she presents the tale to the audience. Debra Kim Sivigny's costumes, John D. Alexander's lighting, and Patrick Lord's projections enhance the telling, and draw the audience into the tale even if the myth is fairly predictable and standard. (As an aside, before Vivienne lets the audience witness the first part of the mythical story, she cautions that she's not a writer - so it works - but I still question whether it really adds much value to Yockey's play other than giving Twyford and the audience a break from all of the heavy subject matter, and providing an opportunity for some creative design work.)

While it's understandable that what's in effect "an Alzheimer's play" might not be everyone's cup of tea for an evening out at the theatre - especially if they are dealing or have dealt with the disease in some way in their own lives - it's important to stress that BLACKBERRY WINTER is not your typical disease play. It's not heavy on melodrama. It's honest. Comedy is mixed with realistic emotion, and the end result - especially thanks to Twyford's exceptionally realistic, yet never overwrought, performance - is something that is most satisfying, and will stay with you far after the swift 90-minute production ends.

Forum Theatre, under Dove's artistic direction, has made a wonderful habit of providing local audiences with opportunities to see unique world premieres. This production is yet another strong example, and with Twyford at the center it's must-see theatre. There's absolutely no reason for any seat to remain empty.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

The National New Play Network rolling world premiere of BLACKBERRY WINTER runs through June 11, 2016 at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre (8641 Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland), where Forum Theatre is a resident company. General admission tickets can be purchased in advance online, but "pay what you want" tickets are also available for every performance an hour before curtain.

Photo: Holly Twyford as Vivienne Avery (by Teresa Wood).

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