PAINTING CHURCHES    

Where Humor Meets Heartache

A Theater Review by Julinda D. Lewis

Presented by CAT – Chamberlayne Actor’s Theatre

At: Hanover Tavern, 13181 Hanover Courthouse Rd., Route 301, Hanover, VA 23069

Performances: October 4-19, 2024

Ticket Prices: $34.00 General Admission. $30.00 Seniors 60+

Info: (804) 362-2950 or www.cattheatre.com

Fanny Church wears a wide-brimmed hat as she reminisces over each familiar object before she  wraps it in bubble wrap and places it in a box. Fanny, the wife of a well-known poet, Gardner Church, is packing up to move out of their long-time Boston home. The Church’s are getting older, Gardner’s memory is not what it once was, and it is time to downsize.

In the first scene Fanny eagerly awaits the arrival of their daughter, Margaret or Mags, who is coming to help her parents pack and sort through the memorabilia of a life well lived. But the arrival of Mags, a successful artist who lives in New York, brings its own revelations and complications.

Author Tina Howe and director Kerrigan Sullivan skillfully guide us through this challenging rite of passage with an unpredictable itinerary of heart-wrenching loss, thirst-quenching humor, poignant insights on growing older, and shocking moments of cruelty.

At times, Painting Churches reminded me of Ronan Carr’s Th Barber of Moville in which the barber, Molly, realizing she has declining mental capacities, has made elaborate end-of-life plans that do not take into account her husband’s ability to carry them out. (See my review of that play when I saw it at the Firehouse in June 2022: https://jdldancesrva.com/2022/06/28/the-barber-of-moville/)

Here in Painting Churches, apparently named for Mags’ obsession with painting her parents’ portrait, the versatile Jacqueline Jones takes on the role of the mother, Fanny Sedgwick Church. It is a role that requires Jones to ride an emotional roller coaster, onemoment reminiscing about the family silver and the next joining her husband in recreating scenes from classic paintings, one moment stumbling in the darkness of forgotten memories, and the next waltzing gaily with her husband, one moment watching over her declining husband like a hawk, and the next cruelly demeaning him because of his memory and health issues. Fanny copes with laughter and copious amounts of alcohol.

Daniel Moore plays the role of Gardner Church, the poet and patriarch who appears to be blissfully unaware of his cognitive challenges as he ignores Fanny’s slights and jabs, happily reciting the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Robert Frost from memory. In a tender moment with his daughter Mags, we discover that even his pet bird can recite poetry. Gardner comes across as the “good cop” parent to Fanny’s “bad cop,” but even though he seems to be the kinder gentler parent, we eventually find that neither Gardner nor Fanny ever truly understand their daughter.

The first thing that struck me when Mags arrived, late and flushed, is that she and her parents never seem to communicate. They talk at each other, and about each other, but while speaking in the same room, it’s almost as if the audience is witnessing small snippets of several unrelate conversations. Constance Moreau, as Mags, has mastered this disconnect to the extent that it alerts us to the possibility that something is not quite right. When we finally hear the story of Mags’ childhood masterpiece, I felt – uncomfortably – that we had just been introduced to a whole new level of family dysfunction.

At its heart, Painting Churches is a well-crafted, poetically structured tale about the stresses of an evolving parent-child dynamic in which there are no winners and no losers – there is just life. Each of these characters is given the time and space to develop into full-fleshed beings, neither all good nor all bad. That makes us laugh even harder at their antics and hurt even more deeply for their failings. Oh, and on a lighter note, special mention for the number of times Jones and Moore have to get up and down from the floor! I hope supplies of Tiger Balm for the run of the show were written into their contracts.

And finally, I would be remiss to end without mentioning that this is the Chamberlayne Actor’s Theatre’ 60 year of producing, first as a community theater company and later joining the ranks of Richmond’s professional theater community, and it is their first year in their new home at Hanover Tavern after several years as Richmond nomads after losing their long-term space in the Chamberlayne Farms area on N. Wilkinson Rd.

Painting Churches, produced by Zack Owen, with lighting design by Alleigh Scantling, Costumes designed by Lindsey Ladnier, Scenic and Properties design by Hailey Bean and Sound design by Kerrigan Sullivan, who also directed, runs through October 19.

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Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County, VA. When not writing about theater and dance, she teaches dance history at VCU and low impact dance fitness classes to seasoned movers like herself, and occasionally performs. Her most recent (ad)venture was the premiere of a solo work, The Waters of Babylon or Psalm 137 Revisited: a Post-Exodus Reflection in Movement Choreographed From Collective Memories for the debut of the Critical Race Theatre Project, right here in Richmond at RTP in August 2024.

PAINTING CHURCHES

Written by Tina Howe

Directed by Kerrigan Sullivan

Cast

Jacquline Jones – Fanny Sedgwick Church

Daniel Moore – Gardner Church

Constance Moreau – Margaret Church

Mary Huhmann U/S – Fanny Church

Foster Solomon U/S  – Gardner

Kathrine S. Wright U/S – Mags

Creative Design Team

Producer – Zack Owen

Director – Kerrigan Sullivan

Stage Manager – Jennipher Murphy

Lighting Design – Alleigh Scantling

Costume Design – Lindsey Ladnier

Scenic & Properties Design – Hailey Bean

Sound Design – Kerrigan Sullivan