{"id":243868,"date":"2010-09-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/strong-women-cant-relate-in-blessings-drama\/"},"modified":"2010-09-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-17T07:00:00","slug":"strong-women-cant-relate-in-blessings-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/strong-women-cant-relate-in-blessings-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong women can\u2019t relate in Blessing\u2019s drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Charlene Baldridge
\nCr\u00edtico de Teatro SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Strong<\/a>
Rhona Gold (Dorothea, left), Rachael VanWormer (Echo, center) and Julie Anderson Sachs (Artie) in \u201cEleemosynary\u201d at the Moxie Theatre in Rolando. (Courtesy Chelsea Whitmore)<\/figcaption><\/figure>It\u2019s always a pleasure to experience the work of playwright Lee Blessing, his keen wit and his marvelous insight into the condition of being human. In the case of Blessing\u2019s \u201cEleemosynary\u201d (1985), playing through Sept. 26 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando, the condition is female and the insight is extraordinary.<\/p>\n

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the meaning of \u201celeemosynary\u201d is \u201cof, related to, or supported by charity.\u201d It\u2019s one of many words spelled and pronounced by the play\u2019s smarty-pants teenage protagonist, Echo. It\u2019s a word Echo\u2019s mother, Artie (short for Artemis), believes is among those words \u201cmeant to be spelled and not spoken.\u201d <\/p>\n

If Echo is a spelling bee champion\u2014and she is triumphant\u2014it\u2019s partly Artie\u2019s fault. She coached Echo from the safe remove of the telephone despite her daughter\u2019s pleas to come to her. It\u2019s also the fault of Dorothea, who has raised Echo ever since Artie abdicated Dorothea\u2019s household and single motherhood to become a research scientist. <\/p>\n

Regardless of their situation and prickly personalities, the Wesbrook women are brainy, stubborn and self-directed women who have difficulties relating as mothers and daughters. The ease of loving skips a generation, and Dorothea is dying, having suffered a massive stroke. She cannot speak, but her granddaughter hears her nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Director Chelsea Whitmore and her magnificent company\u2014Rachael VanWormer (Echo), Julie Anderson Sachs (Artie) and Dorothea (Rhona Gold)\u2014illuminate every nuance of these human beings so fully realized by Blessing.<\/p>\n

The play presents itself in a series of scenes that are mostly direct address, as if the speaker is reflecting on events that have brought her to a place beyond denouement, a place toward which we move. Dorothea\u2019s pronouncement regarding her present condition is one of the play\u2019s most delightful moments, along with the woman\u2019s determination that Artie will fly. Fly she does, but not in the way Dorothea intended. Ultimately Echo\u2019s tenacity, determination and forgiveness exemplify the meaning of \u201cEleemosynary.\u201d Any woman who\u2019s been a mother, sister or daughter will understand. So will some men. The playwright, the director and these actors capture it thoroughly, facilitated by the gentle humor of costume designer Jennifer Mah, the atmospheric lighting of Karin Filijan, the subtle sound design of Matt Lescault-Wood and the otherworldly world of scenic designer Angelica Ynfante.<\/p>\n

Blessing heads the playwriting program at Rutgers University\u2019s Mason Gross School of the Arts. He has been much produced locally, including his affecting \u201cThief River\u201d by Diversionary Theatre; one of his most recent, the world premiere of \u201cThe Scottish Play\u201d by La Jolla Playhouse; and one of his most enigmatic, \u201cA Body of Water,\u201d seen in a splendid production at the Old Globe. The Playhouse also produced, among other Blessing plays, the world premiere of \u201cTwo Rooms\u201d as well as \u201cGoing to St. Ives\u201d and Blessing\u2019s best-known work, \u201cA Walk in the Woods.\u201d The Profile Theatre of Portland, Ore., is devoting its 2010-2011 season to Blessing\u2019s plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cEleemosynary\u201d
\nThrough September 26
\nJueves-S\u00e1bados, 8 pm
\nSundays, 2 p.m.
\nTickets: $22-$25
\nMoxie Theatre
\n6663 El Cajon Blvd.
\nRolando<\/strong>
\nmoxietheatre.com<\/a>
\n(858) 598-7620
\n<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charlene Baldridge SDUN Theatre Critic It\u2019s always a pleasure to experience the work of playwright Lee Blessing, his keen wit and his marvelous insight into the condition of being human. In the case of Blessing\u2019s \u201cEleemosynary\u201d (1985), playing through Sept. 26 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando, the condition is female and the insight is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":731,"featured_media":243869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Strong women can\u2019t relate in Blessing\u2019s drama","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}