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http://www.omniture.com --> Email Story to a Friend June 9, 2006 'Memory of Water' builds castles in the sand Nietzsche once said that when memory and pride quarrel, memory yields. He might have been talking about Shelagh Stephenson's play "The Memory of Water." When three sisters gather in the north of England to bury their mother, who has died of Alzheimer's, they find that memory, far from being a simple thing, is like one of those subatomic particles in quantum physics that's impossible to pin down. They bicker, wallow in recriminations and discover conflicting memories; clearly not all of them can be true. The play was voted the United Kingdom's "Play of the Year" in 2001 and won the Olivier Award for best new comedy of 2000. Oregon Stage Works' new production opened Monday, a week later than originally scheduled. It is a moving, funny production of an intelligent contemporary play that doesn't break any particularly startling ground. Mary Sandra Lind, Teresa Judith Rosen and Catherine Diana Edgerton don't waste time getting down to it. Teresa, the eldest daughter and the only married one, took care of Mum when she was dying, and she isn't above playing martyr. Mary is a doctor, the family's "successful daughter." Both are in their 40s. Catherine is 30 or so and acts like an immature 20 — a self-obsessed bad girl who goes through men almost as fast as she goes through one-liners, of which she has some terrific ones. The necessity of planning the details of the funeral has flung these women together, and they begin to argue. One has a memory. Another remembers the same event, but utterly differently. Who was really abandoned on the beach? Did it even happen? The exchanges between siblings settle into an alternating pattern, with insults and recriminations, often very funny, followed by nitty-gritty face-offs that go to the guts. Teresa and Catherine have the funniest lines. The men in the play, Teresa's henpecked husband, Frank Yosha Ellis and the married and unable-to-commit Mike Jeff Golden, with whom Mary is in a dead-end affair, are almost afterthoughts, serving mainly to illustrate the women's levels of dysfunctionality. Both Mike and Frank could wander in here by mistake from a lost Wendy Wasserstein play. The production unfolds on a beautiful set for which no designer is credited Tracie Ashby is listed as a consultant and is blocked for the three-quarter thrust stage, with actors facing each other as in real life, sometimes turned away from viewers. The result is a feeling of intimacy. "The Memory of Water" isn't tragicomedy, and it's not exactly a dark comedy. It is a comic family drama that's funny despite the pain it uncovers. The play's complexity in part led Oregon Stage Works Artistic Director Peter Alzado to take the unusual step of postponing its opening. He said later that his dissatisfaction with the production's direction — he says it played in rehearsals as a dark family tragedy — led to a one-week push-back of the opening and a revamping of its direction to find the play's humor. Alzado took over from Spurgeon, and the actors changed their characters over a space of just three days. Spurgeon stayed with the production and continues to be listed as director. The character with the most developed arc is Mary, who despite her outward success has an empty personal life. Stephenson's focus is on how our lives are built of the stories we tell ourselves, which are based on our memories, which may be a bit like building castles of sand. The memory metaphor refers to a homeopathic principle which holds that water is capable of retaining the memory of particles dissolved in it in ever smaller amounts until nothing physical remains, an idea not accepted by mainstream science. That's a mystery at the center of our lives, Stephenson says. Be that as it may, there seems little doubt her script has lots of internal beats for tenderness and love, even with especially with these flawed characters. "The Memory of Water" plays at OSW 482-2334, oregonstageworks.org through July 3. It would be a shame if any confusion around its opening obscured its virtues. Although it may not be terribly original at bottom, it is witty and entertaining, and buoyed by fine performances, it makes its points feel fresh. Advertisement s Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations --> online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Entertainment Guide --> Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Pharmacy