Grace and Glorie, a sentimental story about finding peace in strange places, opens Friday, Oct. 16 at the Chemainus Theatre starting at 8 p.m.
This unique, crowd-pleasing Broadway play emphasizes the magnetic relationship of opposing forces.
You’ll see two antagonistic women with haunted pasts, thrown together by circumstance, come to a meeting of minds.
The play takes place deep in the mountains of Virginia, where cantankerous 90-year-old Grace Stiles is living out her final days.
Grumpily at her side is Gloria Whitmore, a Harvard-educated hospice volunteer who has forsaken a high-powered career in the city to escape the secret grief of a recent tragedy.
Confined in a remote forest cabin, the women clash as they try to find something in common, revealing a series of confessions and insights as they learn to trust, respect, and eventually take comfort in one another.
Director Pamela Halstead found plenty of grist for an actor’s mill in this situation.
“Both Grace and Glorie’s women are suffering in their own distinct ways, but through their self-reflection, and some amusing confrontations, they realize that one hardship isn’t all too distant from another. Their connection becomes a new way to think about fate and fortune,” she said.
And it’s a dynamic duo.
Erin Ormond plays Gloria Whitmore, a stylish, citified, hospice volunteer with a thermos of chicken soup and a no-nonsense demeanour. Valerie Pearson is Grace Stiles, a dying elderly woman with endless complaints but a stubborn resistance to contemporary life.
Theatregoers can watch both Ormond and Pearson expertly embody the feisty and insightful sides of their characters as they spar in a country mouse-city mouse camaraderie of shared secrets and private jokes.
Expect some moments that pull at the heartstrings as well as tickling the funny bone.
This drama runs only until Nov. 7, so book your tickets now at chemainustheatre.ca or by calling 1-800-565-7738.
Show enhancements are available, and include: free talk-backs with the cast and crew following Wednesday performances (where insight into the production will be shared) and a special show-themed buffet dinner in the contemporary Playbill Dining Room.
