{"id":363228,"date":"2025-01-15T10:37:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=363228"},"modified":"2025-01-15T10:37:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:37:20","slug":"intimate-immersion-in-the-emotions-of-caregiving-in-who-cares-world-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2025\/01\/15\/intimate-immersion-in-the-emotions-of-caregiving-in-who-cares-world-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"Intimate immersion in the emotions of caregiving, in ‘Who Cares’ world premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

The church basement space has been configured to feel as closely contained as possible yet accommodate a small audience seated on risers around a modest playing area. The stage is set with ten gray slat-back chairs that the cast of six repeatedly rearranges to mark changes between scenes. The proximity is the point, the intimate immediacy is the intent, for we are here to witness up close a dramatized support group for people impacted by the pressure of caring for impaired people in a country that fundamentally doesn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of people feel like they\u2019re failing at aging \u2013 or failing at caring \u2013 when in fact it\u2019s society that\u2019s failing them,\u201d says Lise Bruneau, portraying the author of a book cited as a source for this astonishing and stirring world premiere. Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project<\/em> \u2014 an extensively workshopped piece of theater presented by Voices Festival Productions \u2014 is structured as an artful pastiche of touching true stories gleaned from interviews and retold by a versatile cast playing multiple roles. The effect over two hours and two acts of vignettes, anecdotes, and dance breaks is a deepening and moving immersion in human distress and resilience in the face of a politics of disregard.<\/p>\n

\u201cTasty morsels of crisis. Yum!\u201d says Todd Scofield facetiously, playing a husband who is caring for his mentally diminishing wife.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Kelly Renee Armstrong, Laura Shipler Chico, and Lise Bruneau in \u2018Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project.\u2019 Photo by Peggy Ryan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the emotionally vivid stories of compassionate and encumbering caregiving unfold, many turn on the unlucky ineluctability of memory loss. Visually grounding such stories, set designer Heidi Castle-Smith has conceived a stage surface painted to seem a hospital-white tile floor on which are splayed umber tendrils of fading brain veins. Lighting designer David M. Smith deploys a ceiling full of LEDs to shift deftly from a clinical bright glare to a mirrored disco to private encounters in penumbras. And among sound designer David Lamont Wilson\u2019s playlist pleasures are such on-message tunes as \u201cWe Are Family\u201d by Sister Sledge, James Taylor\u2019s \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend,\u201d Ellie Holcomb\u2019s \u201cI Will Carry You.\u201d and \u201c(It\u2019s a) Family Affair\u201d by Sly and the Family Stone.<\/p>\n

This work of verbatim theater has an evident dramaturgical aspiration: it wants participants in the depicted support group to seem like family to one another \u2014 and for some of that familial feeling to osmose to us.<\/p>\n

Whether and to what extent this public performance does so will necessarily be a private matter, shaped and\/or triggered by one\u2019s experience of caregiving and\/or being cared for. The connection is our common mortality, and Who Cares<\/em> generously invites us into a communal space where stories that we are spectators to can stand in for our own and remind us to embrace the limits of our lives and the expanse of our loves.<\/p>\n

\"\"
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Joelle Denise; Kendall Arin Claxton and Lise Bruneau; Joelle Denise and Kelly Renee Armstrong; Todd Scofield and Laura Shipler Chico, in \u2018Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project.\u2019 Photos by Peggy Ryan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The acting is at first everyday-casual, almost offhand, as the support group members take their seats around the circle. An early story hints at the pain of a loved one\u2019s mental decline: Scoffield as a son recounts how dementia made his mother, portrayed by Laura Shipler Chico, behave inappropriately and become uncharacteristically mean.<\/p>\n

Understudying Kelly Renee Armstrong on opening night, Llogan Paige, script in hand, was persuasive as a group member whose mother, Jennifer Nelson, once a legendary theatermaker in DC, now has no comprehension. Because many of the original interviewees were friends and colleagues in the local theater world, there is a motif throughout Who Cares<\/em> of cognitive curtains coming down.<\/p>\n

Chairs are reset as the scene shifts to a book reading at Politics and Prose where Lise Bruneau as Theresa Connolly, author of The Measure of Our Age,<\/em> lofts aphorisms (\u201cWe want to get old, but not be old\u201d) and shares statistics about longevity in a broken care system where the aggregate free labor of caregivers is tantamount to slavery:<\/p>\n

\n

AARP estimates that about 50 million informal caregivers \u2014 most of them unpaid family members \u2014 provide an average of 24 hours a week of care to<\/em> people 50 and older, over an average of four years.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kendall Arin Claxton chokes up as she recalls \u201cbathing the mother who used to bathe me.\u201d Sometimes a faint and poignant piano underscores such tender moments. Joelle Denise as the support group leader is a fount of empathy and an anchor of solace.<\/p>\n

Other scenes include a visit to a residential care facility, a comedy club, a house of worship, and a droll sketch inspired by that master poet of decrepitude Samuel Beckett. The pieced-together dramatic form \u2014 created by co-authors Ari Roth, A. Lorraine Robinson, and Vanessa Gilbert and sensitively directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer \u2014 functions like a well-stitched quilt, with each patch its own presence and a resonant theme threaded through: stark content about failed government policy interwoven with amusing and heartrending human interest narratives of loss and care. In the process, a common experience rarely articulated outside private lives transforms into a theater-prompted public conversation.<\/p>\n

By the second act, the acting intensifies, storylines become more dramatic, and the stakes get higher. For instance, there is a gripping scene about taking away the car keys from an elder who is no longer safe behind the wheel. Overall, the show\u2019s slow build may be longer than necessary. When accomplished actors such as Scofield, Denise, Claxton, Chico, and Bruneau let loose in anger and anguish as they eventually do, one truly senses the beating heart of this momentous material. And one can appreciate the movement-based music interludes that infuse respite and reflection.<\/p>\n

Running Time: Two hours and 20 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.<\/p>\n

Who <\/em>Cares<\/em>: <\/em>The Caregiver Interview Project <\/em><\/strong><\/a>plays through February 2, 2025, presented by Voices Festival Productions,<\/a> performing at Universalist National Memorial Church, 1810 16th St, NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($45, with discounts available for groups, patrons under 30, affinity groups, and artists) are available online.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Who Cares: <\/em>The Caregiver Interview Project<\/em><\/strong>
\nCo-written by Ari Roth, A. Lorraine Robinson, and Vanessa Gilbert
\nWith original stand-up material from Jim Meyer and excerpts from the work of M.T. Connolly and her book, The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life
\nDirected by Kathryn Chase Bryer
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

CAST
\nKelly Renee Armstrong*: Rachel, Rev. Leslie, Tyra, Bee, Tanty
\nLise Bruneau*: Theresa, June, Nurse, Hospice
\nLaura Shipler Chico: Sarah, IONA Program Director, Jim\u2019s mom
\nKendall Arin Claxton*: Kris, Kathleen, Cecilia, Selam
\nTodd Scofield*: Jim, P&P Owner
\nJoelle Denise*: Lorri
\nUnderstudies: Rachel Manteuffel, Llogan Paige, Robert Bowen Smith
\nCasting: Daryl Eisenberg, CSA, Eisenberg Casting
\n*Denotes member of Actors Equity Association<\/p>\n

CREATIVE TEAM
\nDavid Elias* (Stage Manager); Nora Butler (Assistant Stage Manager); David Smith (Lighting Designer); David Lamont Wilson (Sound Designer); Brandee Mathies (Costume Designer); Heidi Castle-Smith (Scenic Designer); Tyra Bell (Props Designer); Robert Bowen Smith (Movement Director)<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:
\nVoices Festival Productions to open \u2018Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project\u2019 <\/a><\/strong>(news story, December 27, 2024)
\nVoices Festival Productions announces cast for \u2018Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project\u2019\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>(news story, October 16, 2024)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devising from real-life interviews, Voices Festival Productions theatricalizes touching true stories about loved ones\u2019 loss of memory. By JOHN STOLTENBERG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":363260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,18],"tags":[38,39,33,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-363228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured","8":"category-reviews","9":"tag-a-lorraine-robinson","10":"tag-ari-roth","11":"tag-kathryn-chase-bryer","12":"tag-vanessa-gilbert"},"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nIntimate immersion in the emotions of caregiving, in 'Who Cares' world premiere - 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He writes both reviews and his Magic Time! column, which he named after that magical moment between life and art just before a show begins. In it, he explores how art makes sense of life\u2014and vice versa\u2014as he reflects on meanings that matter in the theater he sees. Decades ago, in college, John began writing, producing, directing, and acting in plays. He continued through grad school\u2014earning an M.F.A. in theater arts from Columbia University School of the Arts\u2014then lucked into a job as writer-in-residence and administrative director with the influential experimental theater company The Open Theatre, whose legendary artistic director was Joseph Chaikin. Meanwhile, his own plays were produced off-off-Broadway, and he won a New York State Arts Council grant to write plays. Then John\u2019s life changed course: He turned to writing nonfiction essays, articles, and books and had a distinguished career as a magazine editor. 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