“Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help” is a comedy with a bite, centered on a singular event (and it’s a doozy) in the life of a devout Irish American family. Through inspired writing and intricate plot development, playwright Katie Forgette opens a wide aperture on the 1970s, an era in which women young and old redefined themselves and their role in society.
The story’s location isn’t pinpointed, but suffice to say it could be any community where small minds and big mouths exist.
Navigating the transition between adolescence and adulthood is college-bound Linda O’Shea (portrayed with moxie by Samantha Gorjanc) who serves as the story’s guide, regularly breaking the fourth wall to deliver wry and pithy asides to the audience.
Linda’s mother, housewife Josephine (Jo) O’Shea (portrayed by Erin Noel Grennan, with equal measures of resignation and resolve). She makes three meals a day, does all the shopping, vacuuming, dusting, waxing, washing, ironing, caulking, painting, nursing, ironing and then some. But, according to blue-collar husband Mike O’Shea (Tom Dugan), who is proud of being the family’s sole breadwinner: “She never worked a day in her life.”
There’s prepubescent daughter Becky O’Shea (Abbi Hoffpauir), who is quite a character. While her friends watch “All in the Family,” “Mary Tyler Moore Show” or “Maude,” Becky immerses herself in 1940s film noir, wears a fedora and a trench coat over her parochial-school plaid pinofore dress, speaks with a Bogart accent and routinely interrogates her Barbie dolls.
Jo’s sister, Theresa (Terri) Carmichael (played by consummate scene-stealer Shana Wride) is living with the family after a painful separation from her husband.
Unseen, but not unheard, is an invalid grandmother bellowing from the second floor while pounding on the floor with her cane.
One day, Jo stammers and averts her eyes when asking Linda for a favor: Will she kindly explain menstruation to 13-year-old Becky and why not throw in the birds and the bees for good measure.
Linda belligerently agrees and, empowered by the enlightenment of the taboo-breaking “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” gives the innocent kid an earful. Unfortunately, little sis has a wire under her trench coat in the form of a cassette tape recorder she’s ineptly learning to use and, yes, the tape is running and will be heard by others.
Enter tyrannical Father Lovett (Tom Dugan’s second of three roles) who senses souls at risk and arranges a feared visit to the O’Shea home. Everyone in the parish knows through gossip extraordinaire Betty (Dugan uproarious in drag).
A crack cast and impressive directing by Jenny Sullivan brings the story impressively over the finish line.
Set designer Marty Burnett and props designer Christopher M. William had a field day creating and styling the O’Shea’s 1970s era home where the story’s action takes place with wood paneling and yellow-orange-pink flower-power wallpaper juxtaposed with kitchen cabinets painted drab olive green and a macrame plant hanger harboring a spider plant.
Light design by Matthew Novotny, costume design by Elisa Benzoni, sound design by Evan Eason and hair and wig design by Peter Herman.
“Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” a memory play that begins with a warning about the fallibility of memory, delights with indelible theater moments.
by Lynne Friedmann
