Vi: Have you noticed anything about the view?
Mary: No.
Vi: It’s closer.
Mary: What is?
Vi: The sea. Fifty yards closer. It’ll take the house eventually. All gone without a trace. Nothing left. And all the life that happened here, drowned, sunk. As if it had never been.
These are some of the very first lines in the play The Memory of Water. Vi is Mary’s mother, or more precisely a ghostly vision of Mary’s dead mother. Her observation about the sea keeps coming to me as I ponder the play and its themes.
Water: lapping, washing, erasing, eroding water is the play’s metaphor for the mind losing its memories. When alive, Vi suffered severe memory loss. I keep thinking of her listening to the sound of the sea as her grip on her memories loosened. Just imagine what that’s like. As we get older our memories, once sharp and solid, take on the blurred, slow-motion wateriness that has us groping for names and dates that were once available to the tongue for the asking. Now in my forties I know my mind isn’t as sharp as it once was, and that’s scary. I can only imagine the terror that senility, dementia or Alzheimer’s holds for those afflicted. I mean, who are we if we don’t remember?
And what of others’ memories of us? When we die, do we get slowly washed away in the minds of the people we love until there’s nothing left? To a mid-life aged person like myself (or like Mary in the play) this thought fuels the already persistent mid-life questions that prick and prod at me as I go about my work asking, Is this it? Is what you’re doing now important enough? Will it last? Will we be remembered?
And it’s not just age and death that robs us of our memories. It seems to be a constant human condition. How often does one find that a family member remembers something differently than you do? Do you assume your version is the right version? Is there a right version? Or has each of us rewritten the past in our minds? Memory seems to be not only fleeting, but elastic and malleable. Like water seeking its own level, our memories seem to lack a definite shape of their own and instead assume the imperfect shape of their vessel.
Our design team already has some ideas about how we can bring this watery blurriness into our production. We are excited to play with water sounds and watery colors. We want the set to reflect the way the mind’s eye is often blurred, then brings something surprising into sharp focus. So we will not have hard edges or clear delineations between set and audience. Instead, we’ll blur the lines of reality, making our play a clear spot in a fuzzy world. Wall paper patterns may blur and fade around the edges, photos may lose their focus, furniture may seem less solid at the edge of the room. We’re even playing with the idea of making the air hazy to reflect the uncertain nature of memory.
As I think about all this, the title of the play comes to mind. It’s a reference to a homeopathic theory that asserts that water “remembers” or retains some essence of whatever is dissolved in it, even after all trace is removed. If that’s true, then there’s a hopeful side to our metaphor and to our play. Our water-like memories may wash away and fade, but there’s some essence, something essential about who we are that can never disappear. We’re still us. Even if our minds lose their grip and there is no such thing as a true memory of the past, the family members that shared that past still belong to one another. They’re still a family. Even if we die and are forgotten, in some immeasurable way our influence will still exist in the ether. We are eternal.
This play is about families, and it makes the case that you never stop being a family no matter how old you get to be. It makes me want to call my sisters. It makes me want to understand my mother better. It makes me giggle at our conflicts and it frustrates me in the pursuit of life’s elusive truths. I think I understand my family better because of this play. I know I think about them more because of it. What better goals can a playwright have than these? What better reasons to produce a play? What lasts? Will this? I don’t know, but I’m glad we’re asking the question.
–Frances Limoncelli
About Frances:
Frances is an ensemble member with Lifeline Theatre. She has appeared in their productions of Pistols For Two, Precious Bane, Pinocchio, Bunnicula and as the title role in Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. She has also directed several productions at Lifeline including Simple Jim And His Four Fabulous Friends, The Story Of Ferdinand, Miss Bianca, Half Magic, and Cooking with Lard and Queen Lucia: A Musical Romp. As an adaptor she created The Emperor’s Groovy New Clothes and Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch with Queen Lucia’s composer/lyricist George Howe and the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries Whose Body?, Strong Poison (Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Award: Adaptation) and Gaudy Night (Non-Equity Jeff Award: Adaptation). Around Chicago she has appeared in Shear Madness at the Blackstone; The House Of Martin Guerre and Cry, The Beloved Country at the Goodman; Master Class at Northlight Theatre; Falsettos at Appletree Theatre; Lifeline’s Pride And Prejudice for Chicago Theatres On The Air to name a few. At Vermont’s Weston Playhouse she has played some of her favorite roles including Mary in Merrily We Roll Along, Emma Goldman in Ragtime, Carrie in Carousel, Fraulien Kost in Cabaret and Mrs. Montgomery in The Heiress. Frances graduated from the Boston Conservatory with a BFA in theatre performance and an emphasis in directing. This is her first production with BackStage.
