Cape Cod Times
Entertainment
reviews
July 29, 2004
By GWENN FRISS
STAFF WRITER
And this benefit performance at The Monomoy Theatre
brings the play to life so well you will feel as if you’re eavesdropping on the
70something characters who have been friends for more than a half-century.
It’s an amazing performance: hilarious, warm and authentic. Pat
Carroll as crusty and pragmatic Kate and Patricia Conolly
as sophisticated and flighty Val manage to convey their characters in the first
few minutes on stage, before they even speak a word.
Carroll arrives first, blustering and grunting from the cold, lumbering from
arthritic hips and a knee replacement. She rubs her nose with a finger to warm
it and maybe wipe away a drip and then calls her dog, Irene, with a shrill
two-fingered whistle that displays any doubts about her frailty. She phones her
older friends around town to make sure they’re OK and then settles in to write
an e-mail, encouraging Val to learn this wonderful new means of communication.
As lights go down on the half of the stage that is a New England cottage, they
come up on a sophisticated London flat where Conolly
is doing silent battle with the new laptop computer her husband has set up for
her. With step-by-step directions clutched in one hand, she paces, opening the
cover, glancing between directions and the enemy machine in a two-minute
pantomime (accompanied by audience laughter) before she finally reaches out with
a pencil and stabs at the "on" button.
In one brief scene, we know these women, whom we will come to know so much
better as their lives unfold over a year, starting Jan. 1, 2002, on opposite
sides of the
Carroll is a longtime stage, television and film actress, whose gravelly voice
and hearty laugh brought Ursula the wicked squid to life in Disney’s "The
Little Mermaid."
Conolly, an East African native who grew up in
They both live in
Documenting the accumulated work of these four people would keep your printer
busy for a long time. With so much experience between them, it’s hard to know
who should get credit for the wonderful stage business, expressions and body
language that run through "oldfriends.com" like a vein of gold in
rock. It is hilarious to watch Carroll digging through her character’s junk
drawer, pulling out an odd assortment with a comment or song for each.
"That one’s dead," she says, yanking a rubber chicken from the mess.
Yet Conolly’s grief after hearing about the 9/11
terrorist attacks is heartbreaking.
This production raises money for Friends of the Monomoy
Theatre and Friends of the Eldredge Public Library.
But it’s really a gift to the