EDMONDS – Grace is a 90-year-old woman who lives alone in a tiny cottage in rural Virginia. The tiny shed-like building is equipped with a wood-burning stove, pumped water and chickens running across the front porch. And it is here where Grace is dying. Outside her window, bulldozers trample over the apple orchard she planted seed by seed. Inside, Grace lies in her bed, headphones blasting gospel music so loud she cannot hear the knock at her door.
Opening the door, button-downed, all business, Gloria (whom Grace immediately names “Glorie”) arrives. Glorie is a hospice volunteer who’s “come to help Grace die.”
“I need help dying?” Grace squawks as Glorie introduces herself. Little does Glorie know that in the short time they spend together, Grace will teach Glorie not about dying but about life, love and letting go in the Edge of the World Theatre’s production of Tom Ziegler’s heartwarming “Grace and Glorie.”
Grace (Melanie Calderwood) and Glorie (Heidi Jean Weinrich) couldn’t be any more dissimilar – intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Grace is short, squatty and plain while Glorie could be the poster girl for Nordstroms’ “working woman” line. Glorie is a Harvard business graduate; Grace can neither read nor write. To brighten Grace’s days, Glorie brings a taste of New York, her native city: bruschetta, lobster salad and brie. Grace prefers her hometown specialty: Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip and Velveeta.
Calderwood and Weinrich play well together. Calderwood’s Grace faces every final task, pragmatic, practical and intent on finishing her life the way she spent it – busy – as she knits a sweater for a young relative and cuts squares for a new quilt. Weinrich’s Glorie is wonderfully wired – her MBA attire covering a wounded spirit beneath.
What both characters bring home is that it is their differences that eventually bond them. Grace always wanted a daughter, Glorie’s never been nurtured. Glorie questions everything in life, particularly the death of her young son in a car accident. Grace accepted it all.
But it is Glorie’s searching that allows Grace to be able to put into words the feelings she could never read or write. She is able to understand the purpose of her simple life so she can peacefully enter the next phase. “It’s not death that ties us together,” she tells Glorie, “it’s life.”
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