EMA Review: The Will to Live ***1/2 Scrumptious

Rewinding the Clock

By Paul Atreides

Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com  

The Will to Live, Juliana Noble’s first play, deservedly won Best of Fringe at the 2024 Las Vegas Fringe Festival. It was a trimmed-down script to fit the 60-minute time slot. Now, 23 months later, the full play debuts at Vegas Theatre Company with Noble again in the director’s chair.

The play’s conceit and hook is that it is structured backward. It opens with Dorothy’s death, each subsequent scene reverses the story arc, and it ends as early symptoms of Alzheimer’s begin to show. Dorothy is also afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease with virulent tremors that lessen as the timeline reverses. With each flicker of the lights, her cognitive ability has shifted.

I reviewed the original Fringe production. Here, Sherri Brewer reprises the difficult role of Dorothy and has softened the portrayal, bringing more believability to the pathos of fighting such debilitating physical and mental illnesses, while desperately trying to keep her crumbling family together.

Also joining the cast a second time is Kim Forest, who plays Dorothy’s only responsible child and live-in caretaker, Angela. Caretakers walk a fine line, doing what needs to be done while keeping their frustration hidden. Especially when the patient is a parent. They not only deal with the illnesses, but they often have to fend off friends and relatives who infringe in a myriad of ways. In a scene in which Angela is accused of being there only for the money, she loses her cool. However, Forest starts it so over-the-top that she has nowhere to go.

While a play dealing with such grim subjects as death and debilitating diseases, as this one does, could be daunting, Noble doesn’t lose sight of the humor to balance out the emotions. It is in those scenes that Forest and Brewer truly shine.

This go-round, rather than only a voice in her head, Noble wisely brings Dorothy’s deceased husband, Richard Sr. (John Allen), to the stage. I wanted more appearances of him manifesting in Dorothy’s mind, and one opportunity to add to the sweetness of remembering a loved one was missed. But the real problem here is that Allen moves too tenuously, as if he’s not really sure he should be there. He stood half in shadow at times, and his voice was so soft in places that the dialogue was lost.

The roles of Angela’s three siblings are performed by voice only, through phone calls and voicemail messages. We get an unneeded repeat of Dorothy’s new outgoing greeting on the answering machine after her husband’s death. Then there’s only one phone call with a son where we don’t get to hear his side of the conversation. The first time the lights come up, Dorothy and Richard are seen dancing and are interrupted by a cleverly done “voice message” instructing the audience on the use of cell phones. The culmination makes the overall feel disjointed and inconsistent.

Gary Parlanti’s representational interior of Dorothy’s home serves the play, while Romeo Lopez’s lighting begins dark and brightens through the course of events.

Any typical opening-night glitches should be smoothed out over the course of the run. The development of new works is important, and Vegas Theatre Company should be lauded for helping bring another to the stage.

What: The Will to Live

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Monday

            2 p.m. Sundays, 6 p.m. Sundays,

Perfomances May 10 through May 18

Where: Vegas Theatre Company, 1025 S. 1^st Street

Tickets: $32.24 – including fees (https://www.theatre.vegas/)

Grade:  ***1/2 Scrumptious

Producer: Vegas Theatre Company; Director: Juliana Noble; Set Design: Gary Parlanti; Lighting Design: Romeo Lopez; Sound Design: Adam Dooley, Juliana Noble; Stage Manager: Jacob Noble