STAGE REVIEW 'Water' remembers deeper relationships

The cast members spoke with near-perfect accents.
By GARRY L. CLARK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Memories can be funny things. They are fluid, ebbing and flowing -- even changing ever so slightly. They can be vivid regarding a special event, but fuzzy regarding the mundane things in life until some small catalyst -- a taste, gesture or smell -- suddenly brings them to the fore.
Blackbox Production's production of "Memory of Water" opened Thursday evening in the Spotlight Arena Theatre at Youngstown State University, and featured brilliant performances by the six-member cast.
The drama is a psychological study in a sense of the lives of three sisters who have just lost their mother and are going about the business of arranging her funeral.
Each sister adds her own warmth, and vitriol, to the mix of relationships. Each sees their mother in a slightly different light. Each also sees the other differently, and each, in the end, views herself as no one else does.
Through their mother's death and their varying memories of her, they are slowly coming to the realization that the relationship, however sweet or soiled, is one from which there is no escape. They are the product of their mother. Each has her own elements of the mother's strength as well as shades of her weaknesses for which they despise and ultimately love her.
The action is set on the coast in England where the sisters, Mary, Teresa and Catherine, have gathered at their childhood home to make final arrangements for their mother, Violet. Each has her own distinct personality, which grates on the others, and yet also serves to smooth their rougher edges.
Teresa is the take-charge one who wallows in self-pity as the one who has had to deal with everything all these years because she lives close by. Mary is the smart one who received an education and became a doctor and got away from there, or so she thought. And finally there's the little sister, Catherine, who wanders about seeking someone to love and accept her.
Cast: The sister's were superbly played by Meghan Bechtel (Mary), Kacey Durbin (Teresa) and Heather Ray (Catherine). Their mother, Violet, was excellently played by Sara Zilles. All gave resounding performances with near perfect accents.
Turning a stellar performance as Frank, Teresa's somewhat long-suffering husband, was Bernard J. Wilkes IV. His accent was dead-on also. Brad Sutton's performance as a philandering husband who is having an affair with Mary was also well above par, although his lack of an accent was a little distracting as the play was rich with little British phrases and twists of language.
Amanda R. Guthrie serves as director of this play and has done a highly professional job in that capacity. The performances serve to make this an insightful and thought provoking play about family ties and how they can bind -- and sometimes even chafe.