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It’s the beginning of summer in California when we meet Anne as she contemplates a lime. She’s thinking of the tree in her backyard that it came from, unable to decipher exactly when it was planted. She can’t quite place the year, or even the decade, but is clear on the vivid image of the three limes that first adorned the tree – “but those first three, perfect limes. I remember those.” So begins the deeply moving and magical journey of “The Body’s Midnight”, Tira Palmquist’s new play, having its world premiere at Boston Court Pasadena.
Anne is in her mid-fifties and has had a recent diagnosis that, while not Alzheimer’s, has similar symptoms and results. She’s losing words, places and things. It’s devastating news for anyone but in Anne’s case, as a poet and teacher, it feels particularly cruel. She and her academic husband, David, are embarking on a cross-country road trip in a camper van. Their daughter, Katie, is due to give birth in less than a month, so Anne has planned this trip down memory lane to visit not only places like the Grand Canyon, but touchstones from her past. She wants David to know these places in order to help her remember them.
A chance meeting with what seems to be a spirit in the form of a lady trucker named Windy, sets them on a whole new course of sights that might need their attention, that need a witness – sights that are, in fact, disappearing. While David struggles with this new non-itinerary, he eventually agrees and embraces this less traveled adventure. What follows is a transformative journey through an American landscape that is fading and an exploration of how we navigate things we can’t see or control.
Director Jessica Kubzansky deftly moves her exceptional cast seamlessly through the uncharted territory of their own personal “midnights” – the unknowns of where they are going both literally and figuratively. Keliher Walsh is twitchy and devastating as Anne, expertly balancing her fierce intelligence and frustration with all she is struggling to maintain. As jovial and loving husband, David, Jonathan Nichols-Navarro delivers a warm and poignant performance. Walsh and Nichols-Navarro have the terrific chemistry and easy, prickly banter of a couple that has been together for decades. These two seasoned actors are top tier throughout and utterly compelling in a pivotal scene that is revelatory.
Sonal Shah as daughter Katie and a chorus of characters – a trucker, forest rangers and Anne’s doctor is a delight. She imbues each character with precise quirks that are endearing and mysterious while bringing hilarious hormonal angst to Katie. Equally intriguing and just plain fun is the exuberance of Ryan Garcia as Katie’s husband, Wolf, and several incarnations of the ghost, “Franklin”, a wacky doctor and a park ranger.
The stunning production design is almost a character itself in the way its delicate, intricately laced trees, onto which images are projected, bring us inside an MRI machine, a truck stop or campground that is transcendent. The projections of the quaking aspens of Pando in Utah are particularly arresting.
Despite its painful subject matter, Palmquist’s play is really playful and funny – something that is universally human – that seemingly impossible juxtaposition of joy and pain. Her writing poetically marries these two emotions as it seeks to explore this human condition, in all its impermanence, uncertainty, messiness, beauty, and joy.
The Body’s Midnight runs through May 26, 2024 at Boston Court Pasadena, located at 70 Mentor Avenue in Pasadena. Tickets range from $22 to $65, including fees. Monday night performances are Pay What You Choose. For reservations and information, call (626) 683-6801 or visit bostoncourtpasadena.org.
