Greater Clements
Written by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Davis McCallum
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
December 31, 2019
Production website
💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

Tonight was one of the most disturbing evenings I can remember having in the theatre in a long long time.  Again, this was another play that I did no preparation for.  Boy was I surprised!  Tonight I saw two of the best acting performances of the year – for sure!

Edmund Donavan as Joe and Judith Ivey as Maggie just took me away!  Never have I seen acting that just took my breath away and truly scared me.  Usually I am not such a fan of realism – finding it a bit too much like so much of TV – but this is modern realism done right.  Three hours went by and I never checked my watch.

Samuel D. Hunters’s Greater Clements is set in an abandoned mine where 81 men once died in a fire, and what remains of the rural Idaho hamlet above it is no less bleak: a ghost town that has all but given up the ghost. In a collective fit of pique against wealthy invaders from California, the locals have voted to unincorporate their municipality, leaving them without collective services. Among those affected by this change is the forthright Maggie (Judith Ivey), whose small mine-related museum is being forced to close down. A chance for Maggie to escape appears in the form of Billy (Ken Narasaki), her kindly Japanese-American high-school sweetheart from 50 years earlier, now dying of cancer and eager for a second chance at love. But then what would happen to her adult son, Joe (Edmund Donovan), who is at risk of falling back into the psychosis that has derailed his life for years?

Edmund Donavan playing the mentally limited and mentally ill just scared the shit out of me.  The pain, anger and detail that he put into every moment just terrified me.  It wasn’t so much that he was “playing crazy” – he was doing all he could to see through this disability.  

Edmund come across as a sad and puppy-dog wary of those trying to befriend or comfort him.  Donovan is a live wire.  Rarely will you see acting this good.

Judith Ivey is at the top of her game!  She wears all of her heart on her sleeve and she responds to each moment in the play with such acumen. She is like a musical intreat that responds to each note the  the play.

Put both Edmund Donavan and Judith Ivey on stage together and you will have a master acting class!

The set put us upfront in both the home and deep in the mine.  There are a few metal riggings that obscure some of the stage but never did it pull me away from the story.  

In case you can’t tell – this play has a fine script but two brilliant performances.  This should not be missed.