Through August 29
The Memory Show is not really a conventional musical, even though the 75 minute show (with book & lyrics by Sara Cooper and music by Zach Redler) is almost entirely sung. It is really a play whose rapid-fire dialogue and soul-searching monologues are set to wonderful music. The story of a 31-year-old woman (Leslie Kritzer) who returns home to take care of her mentally unstable mother (Catherine Cox) who now has Alzheimer's too, the play, which is having its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company's Musical Theatre Lab, has elements that make you think of the late Wendy Wasserstein (the reciprocal mother/daughter Jewish guilt and humor) as well as Edward Albee (the demented mother's secret is for real and it compounds what is already a heartbreaking situation.) The songs are engrossing, hyper-articulate and polished—the kind of songs that BSC Musical Theater Lab director William Finn writes himself. Of course, Finn and Stephen Sondheim have been pushing the American musical in all sorts of new directions for a long time, and The Memory Show takes a new path: a musical about Alzheimer's is unchartered and terrifying territory. And so is "You and Me, Toilet," a song that is sung to a commode and catalogs the horrors of caring for a loved one who can no longer care for herself. And "I'm Unlovable" is a song of self-awareness that makes one wonder if it's better to be self-deluded. The smart, cozy set by Brian Prather includes a wall of floating picture frames—some with photos, some are empty—that represent the scattershot nature of the mother's mind. The Memory Show is intensely moving because it is such a simple, fraught tale: mother and daughter who need each other but don't always like or understand each other. That it's very funny, very sad but not sentimental in the least is an awesome accomplishment. Barrington Stage CompanyPittsfield, MA
