STAGE WEST: "Louisa Gillis" at North Coast Repertory Theatre

Faline England and James Sutorius in "Louisa Gillis."                                               Photo by Aaron Rumley

            Louisa Gillis is dead, by her own design, in Joanna McClelland Glass’ new play by the same name. But the enigmatic Louisa resides in every character onstage in this world premiere at North Coast Repertory Theatre.
            Celia (Faline England), her surviving daughter, is an alcoholic wounded deep inside by the neglect of Louisa, who pawned her off on a sister and who banished Celia’s father whom Louisa deemed guilty of “moral turpitude.”
            Celia’s own daughter Lucy (Caroline Renee) may be once removed from the darkness of Louisa, but she is now the child of a drunk, and there’s enough evidence psychological and societal to know what a curse that can be.
            Louisa’s banished spouse Steven (James Sutorius) moved on long before granddaughter Lucy was born, and though he’s enjoyed a 40-year second marriage to a woman of heart and substance (Denise Young, as Helga), his bitterness and bile about Wife No. 1 infuses much of his attitude as he nears the end of his life – and it is in no small part the cause of a nasty, broken relationship with Celia.
            This is melodrama. This is family dysfunction. This is, as director David Ellenstein described it in an interview I did with him for The San Diego Union-Tribune, “familial morass.”
            “Louisa Gillis” is North Coast Rep’s second go-round with a play by Glass, whose “Trying” was produced for streaming during the pandemic-necessitated shutdown of live theater. The playwright has worked closely with Ellenstein and his company in bringing this new work to the stage. Like so many world premieres it could use some paring here and there, and the absence of an intermission (not sure why) makes “Louisa Gillis” feel long when it really isn’t.
            As with North Coast Rep’s streaming version of “Trying,” Sutorius is at the forefront (though England gets the last bow after the play ends). His performance as an elderly man losing a grip is more reminiscent, however, of his outstanding turn in Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” which Ellenstein directed in its West Coast premiere in Solana Beach in 2018. That also marked Sutorius’ first performance at NC Rep.
            He creates an even richer character in “Louisa Gillis.” Steven may be tired and bitter and more and more betrayed by his declining physicality, but the longtime college professor and student of mankind retains the words of Shakespeare as if they were etched on his soul, enough humor to cut through the ever-tightening tensions of his old age, and undying affection for faithful Helga.
            Cranky as he is, Steven’s the kind of man of letters and musing that this college professor would like to have had as a grandpa. Sutorius brought that home to me.
            Structurally, “Louisa Gillis” is divided into scenes of confrontation: the whole family at the outset, then variously and not necessarily in this order Steven and Helga, Celia and Lucy, Lucy and Helga, Steven and Celia, etc. There’s rancor in most, tenderness in few.
            Once the fractured relationships have been established, the principal conflict of the play  is revealed: A letter written by Louisa and entrusted to her attorneys decrees that upon Steven’s death he is to be buried beside her and her family, Helga’s wishes be damned.
            It’s a stipulation that appalls everyone except Celia: She’s so ridden with guilt and resentment (and so “in love” with “Johnny,” her regular bottle of Johnny Walker) that she’s torn between being true to her mother’s request in spite of the pain that was caused to her, and being contrarian, especially when her insulting father is involved.
            I have a little trouble with the crux of the conflict: If Louisa charged Steven with moral turpitude and cast him away, why would a judge or jury in a theoretical “custody fight” over Steven’s ashes award them to the woman who scorned him when the other side was someone who had loved him and been his companion for four decades?
            Maybe I missed something.
            “Louisa Gillis” is set in a Connecticut haven for elders, which Steven hotly resents. He’s clinging to the New York City apartment where he and Helga shared their independence and their happier years. Making it worse is that because Celia inherited all the money left by her mother, she’s pulling the purse strings and it’s she who is responsible for her father (and Helga, whom she despises) living in a place where an unseen beefy doorman makes sure that Steven doesn’t wander off, or flee.
            If the script could use some massaging, the performances are solid. Sutorius rules every scene he’s in. England is tasked with being a slaphappy drunk more than a despairing, broke-down one, and her moments with her “Johnny” sometimes can feel a bit caricatured. There are quite a few laughs in “Louisa Gillis,” grim as its circumstances might be, but I’ve never found alcoholism humor very funny.
            Renee’s Lucy is the grown-up in the room much of the time – certainly so when it’s just she and her reeling mother. She’s got a nice stage presence.
            At first, Young has little to do as Helga tries to keep Steven from losing it with Celia, but as the story goes on she brings the manner of warmth and understanding and grit that Glass certainly intended for the character. She fittingly ends up being the conscience of the play.
            The literary quality of the script in part is what Ellenstein has said attracted him to “Louisa Gillis,” and it is indeed a story often told in the rich voice of someone who knows the words of Shakespeare and other great scribes.
            One suggestion for revision: Steven tells Helga, as he knows his death is coming, that he’d like to have a phone conversation with God. He even says he’d be doing it “on Monday.” We never hear the conversation.
            It’s one I’d like to hear, even if it was one-sided.
            “Louisa Gillis” runs through Feb. 8 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.