Good Grief: Arena's Quality of Life

Except that Anderson, an Emmy-winning writer who has also done some time working on Mad Men, refuses to take any easy roads. She includes all the notes you'd expect: Bill can't abide even being within sight while Neil uses marijuana for his pain, and the couples debate over sin, damnation, and the morality of euthanasia. But all the juicy conflict is simply the bait that Anderson uses before the switch: no one here is coping with their grief as well as they might be letting on, and what this play is really about is how we get through the days when we feel there's nothing left to live for. She refuses to judge the couples, either in one's close-mindedness or the other's Pollyannaish optimism. The play brilliantly coaxes genuine emotion out of a situation that's built for, and in lesser hands would have been reduced to, maudlin excess.

Arena Stage's production, the first on the East Coast, is strongest in conveying Anderson's subtle notes, yet falters with the grander gestures. The emotional distance between Dinah and Bill is palpable; one can almost envision the gulf between them even when they're standing right next to one another, a discomfort in proximity, a hesitation to touch. Annette O'Toole and Kevin O'Rourke project this distance with masterfully awkward physicality in their interactions. Johanna Day and Stephen Schnetzer, as Jeannette and Neil, are similarly adept at the use of subtle gestures: the slight tremble in Neil's walking stick showing the weakness wrought by his cancer, or Jeannette's despairing eyes staring into a fire as she comes to term with her impending widowhood. In these moments, the actors bring us into the play with them; the walls fall away and we can almost smell the lingering odor of scorched earth in the air.

This makes it all the more jarring when they fail in the big emotional moments. Nearly every tear shed and sob heaved — and there are plenty to go around — feels forced and exaggerated. The people onstage cease being people in pain, and are simply actors trying to make us believe that's what they are. When Dinah gets high with Neil and Jeannette while Bill is off for a walk, Jeannette tries to teach her to ululate as a kind of primal scream therapy to release her pain. It's potentially a great moment, yet neither woman's yawp seems visceral enough to set loose the most minor of personal demons.

Despite its shortcomings, Arena's production has two things working for it. One is the play itself, skillfully and lovingly crafted enough to weather the occasional stiff performance. The other is a final scene which is designed for maximum tear-jerking without being nakedly manipulative about it. Every actor delivers their best in these closing moments, in a sequence beautifully staged by director Lisa Peterson. Here, confrontation and catharsis have given way to quiet reflection and sad-eyed tenderness. Neil's tears are his own, no longer Stephen Schentzer's. And the overwhelming grief to which Anderson has subjected these characters, such a heavy burden that the audience takes on itself, feels as if it has had a purpose.

Quality of Life runs through October 18 at Arena Stage in Crystal City. Tickets are available online.