JORDAN RYDER
Dan Lauria and Patty McCormack co-star in “Just Another Day” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, through Dec. 20.
“Did I sleep with you last night?” one characters asks another near the start of “Just Another Day,” currently being presented by New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. In another type of play, this might be something that could be say after a wild, drunken night. But this is a different scenario.
The two characters, we soon learn, are living in some kind of nursing home or assisted-living facility. And anything requiring short-term memory presents a major problem. They just can’t remember very far into the past.
JORDAN RYDER
Patty McCormack in “Just Another Day.”
Dan Lauria, who wrote the play, stars as a character who is identified only as Man, and Patty McCormack is Woman. “Just Another Day,” directed here by Eric Krebs, includes two acts, both devoted to conversations between the two on a garden bench. There are moments of great poignancy, but don’t look to “Just Another Day” for a realistic portrayal of the challenges of aging, and dementia. Lauria approaches his topic with a gentle touch and a whimsical spirit, occasionally touching on — but never lingering on — the hardships and indignities that can come with dementia.
While Man and Woman first appear to be strangers, it becomes clear in the first act that they share some history, and may even be married, or have been married. In the first act, it is said that she was a poet; he, a comedy writer. But in the second act, she is the comedy writer, and he is a Marine who became a painter.
Is some of it true? All of it? None of it? Or is one character the figment of the other’s imagination? It’s hard to say.
Whoever they are, they are both completely lucid conversationalists. They even exchange witticisms, and do an old comedy routine together — in the vein of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s “2000 Year Old Man” — and get both the words and the comedic nuances exactly right. And she loves big words. When Man says that he believes Beauty and Love are basically the same thing, she tells him to get away from her: “Only a small little bumptious man would make such a miscalculation of the human condition. … I refuse to be subjected to such importunate sophistry. I believe your position on this bench is no longer tenable.”
They share a love of old movies, and often mention works they know and love. Photos from classic black-and-white movies are shown on the stage’s back wall, as if looming in their consciousness. (One is of McCormack herself, as a child, in 1956’s “The Bad Seed,” for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.)
JORDAN RYDER
Dan Lauria in “Just Another Day.”
There is a dreamlike atmosphere to the play (which starts with a gorgeous, pensive song, written for it and recorded by Graham Russell of the pop duo Air Supply). Man and Woman have not just the bench, but the entire area to themselves. The only other character is some kind of caretaker who remains offstage and rings a bell — much to Man and Woman’s annoyance — when they raise their voices or do something else deemed inappropriate.
“Such an egregious breech of civility,” Woman complains. (To use an analogy from one of the old movies these two characters love, she comes off a lot like Katharine Hepburn at her most prim and proper, while Man is more of the gruff Spencer Tracy type.)
As rich as the conversation is … the two characters’ memories about their own lives tend to be incomplete, or elusive. They can’t even remember if they have children or not. There is a strong bond between them, yet they always seem to be re-discovering each other, as if meeting for the first time. It is as if they have to re-create their relationship — and reaffirm their love for each other — daily. Which makes “Just Another Day” a kind of love story.
As Man says, “As long as we create, we are not lost.” A little later, when Woman asks him what he knows, he says, “I know we’re together.”
And she says, “Fine. That’s nice. We’ll start with that.”
New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch will present “Just Another Day” through Dec. 20; visit njrep.org.
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