philreview

By John Barry

PS Lorio has her name on two plays in this year's Baltimore Playwrights Festival; you won't confuse one with the other, though. Ten Reasons Big Betty Is Stuck on the Side of the Road in a Little Pink Dress, which she co-authored with Dahlia Kaminsky, is a string of comic sketches. Missing Phil, which opened after Big Betty, is a relentlessly focused chronicle of Alzheimer's disease. There are plenty of reasons for seeing Missing Phil. It features some of the best acting and writing in this year's festival, but it's not going to leave you on a high note. Fortunately, there are plenty of bars in Fells Point.

Widower Phil Fuscus (Branch Warfield) has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. His daughter Missy (Pamela Feldman) and her partner, Ruth (Sherrionne Brown), are forced to cope as he becomes increasingly incapable of taking care of himself. The difficulties--financial, practical, and otherwise--take a toll on their relationships.

The two women plow through this predicament with stiff upper lips. As Phil's fortysomething daughter, Missy is in the middle of her own midlife crisis. Now she's struggling with the additional burden of being her father's caretaker. Ruth is sympathetic to Missy's situation, but she's occupied with her own failing business. And finally, Phil himself isn't making things any easier. The disease is already in its advanced stages when we meet him, but it's clear that even at his best he was a little ornery.

It's a tough ride, but Lorio keeps our attention. Alzheimer's is a complex disease, and Lorio has chronicled its subtler manifestations in ways that other plays don't. What gives this play its humorous edge is that, although Phil is on a completely different frequency, he is weirdly tuned in to the world around him. He spends his time staring at the television, watching Regis Philbin play basketball with a monkey, or spending hundreds of dollars on phone sex. One leaves with the impression that, if you're going to have Alzheimer's, this is the way to do it.

The play's most frustrating aspect may be caused by the subject itself. Let's face it; Alzheimer's is not cut out for the stage. Since the plot is defined by the disease, the play essentially reduces the main character to a nonperson. That leaves a black hole at the center of the production. We know Phil is missing, and that his loved ones are missing him, but we're unsure whether he was there to begin with. Lorio deserves credit for approaching Alzheimer's with uncompromising candor, but the effect is a little deflating.

Don't let that keep you away, though; in the end, the cast of Missing Phil makes everything else academic. Given the difficulties of the title role, Branch Warfield comes through with an astonishing performance. Warfield's character doesn't ever break through the limitations of the disease, but the actor allows us to pick up the pieces of the character who was there before the play began. Feldman and Brown, meanwhile, offer a subtly shaded portrayal of a couple who are supportive of one another but close to the breaking point. In a transformation that is almost as dramatic as Phil's, they move from denial to alarm to good-natured acceptance.

One final note. These days, plays about terminal illness are a dime a dozen. Lorio rises above the lowest common denominator by resisting the tendency to go for positive spin. There's nothing therapeutic about watching one's father lose his mind, and Missing Phil doesn't pretend there is. That alone lifts this play far above the usual stock of such dramas. There's a lot of humor in Phil, but it's not there for the laugh lines. It is there because, in the end, it's a way to deal with a heartbreaking illness.