Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery: Aging With Dignity and Laughs

There’s a sweet hotel on Waverly, on the north side of Washington Square Park that could be the prototype of Kenneth Lonergan’s play The Waverly Gallery at the Golden Theater. Even if that’s not the spot where Gladys, a remarkable Elaine May, runs an art gallery that does not seem to make much for the owner or the artists, it could be. This funny, real as the table you can touch drama, trades on the familiarity of places and people: Ellen, Gladys’ beleaguered daughter (an excellent Joan Allen), her husband (a fine David Cromer); and two young actors, bookends of each other: Don, an artist (Michael Cera) and Gladys’ grandson Daniel (Lucas Hedges in his Broadway debut), the IT boy in such films as last year’s Lady Bird, and this year’s Mid-90’s and Boy Erased, taking over from Cera, a prior IT boy.

Ageing is no joke, and you feel Gladys’ vitality slip in every speech, tours de force of mishearing, misspeaking, and misremembering. Costume designer Ann Roth’s elegant dresses make Elaine May look more fashionable than most 80-plus women you know, and then again we hear lots about Gladys’ salad days, her time as a lawyer, the years behind the gallery’s desk when she would collect people as others collected art. Her family does their best, trying to usher her into her last moments with grace and dignity, just as we all try to do with those who exasperate us, those we love anyway.

Already well into its run, The Waverly Gallery is lauded for its dream cast-- it must have been a joy for Lila Neugebauer to direct-- yet it hits some as a wan play; others are just in thrall. I belong to the latter, and it may just be the familiarity with so many in advanced years, and nostalgia for so many who have slipped away. Hearing Elaine May repeat herself and lay out her fears, I could hear the intonations of voice of another beloved actress, Ruth Gordon, and I knew just which side of wisdom I was witnessing.

Regina Weinreich

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