Acting Company's 'Cemetery Club' a comedy to die for

There are several ways to judge a play, all of them subjective.

One way is to ask yourself on the way out of the theater two questions: "What did I bring to this play?" and "What am I taking away?"

Every once in a while, a play is written, staged and performed in such a way that it prompts a third question: "And what am I leaving behind?"

This leaving-behind part is the transformative dramatic emotion Aristotle called "catharsis." Few modern plays provide it.

However, "The Cemetery Club," a comedy-drama written by Ivan Menchell and now playing at The Acting Company in Yuba City until June 29, is one that does, so it is one show you dare not miss while it is here.

The TAC production is directed by Gail Carter and stars Foster Campbell-McManus (as Lucille), Elizabeth Holcomb (as Doris) and Leslee Myers (as Ida).

Paul McManus and Sharon Wonder play two crucial supporting roles as Sam the neighborhood butcher and Mildred the hussy interloper.

The play is about three New York widows in their 50s (they claim) or 60s (more likely) whose husbands all died within a short time of each other. This propinquity of demise causes these longtime friends to meet once a month at Ida's house in Queens to go together to the cemetery where their late spouses are buried.

The three widows portray different stages of mourning.

Lucille doesn't exactly lament her husband — dead and gone these last few years, God rest his soul — so much as resent his escaping this world before she could punish him for his philandering.

For her part, Ida is a genuine griever. She misses her husband, but she also has reached a point where she is wondering if her decent period of mourning hasn't maybe stretched out a little longer than necessary.

Doris, however, is fully committed to her widowhood.

Doris is the organizing force behind the monthly visit to the cemetery.

While at the cemetery this time, the three chance upon Sam, who is there to visit the grave of his recently deceased wife.

Holcomb, Myers and Campbell-McManus each turn in sterling performances. They give their characters a certain depth and width that surely can only come from having felt in their own lives some of the emotions and events depicted in the play.

Each offers a good rendition of a Brooklyn-Queens accent. They all know their lines and have their timing and their roles smoothed to a strong, steady pace.

Each reaches a critical moment in the play when she must find within herself the tender feelings of friendship, love, loss and leave-taking and bring them forth for the audience.

And each delivers the goods when her moment comes.

Menchell, who was born in 1961, has his characters fixed in a certain time and place, but director Carter and her players make it easy for Yuba-Sutter audiences to understand.

The humor is located entirely in the theatrical convention of the I-can-get-it-for-you-wholesale, Second-hand Rose, "Even Jake the plumbah, he's the man I ado-ah, he had the noive to tell me he's been married befo-ah" variety. But that's OK. It's funny and it works. Or perhaps that should be, "woiks."

All I can say is the current Yuba City production connects with the audience. At least, it did at the Sunday matinee I attended. I saw it happen.

I watched the audience as Holcomb, Myers and Campbell-McManus reached the impact points of their characters' soul-felt emotions of loves departed and futures feared.

From the back row, I could not see the playgoers faces, so I can't swear that tears were falling. But I can say I did see a few arms come up and fingers wipe something away.

And the cast got a standing ovation. Not the have-to kind parents give their kids in school plays, but the genuine kind awarded to the play and the performers when they had hit home with the audience.

Award-winning journalist and author Tom Nadeau has written for and acted on stage, screen, radio and television. Write to him at theaterland@gmail.com