A visually impaired middle-schooler comes of age in The Group Rep’s 35th-anniversary revival of Doug Haverty’s engaging dramedy In My Mind’s Eye.

The year is 1968, and Patty Henderson (a peppy Peyton Kirkner) has been living under the thumb of her overprotective single mom Lola (Maria Kress, statuesque and intimidating) these past fourteen years, but if the young miss has her way, 9th-grade will mark the beginning of her declaration of independence, step one of which will be transferring out of a special-needs school that has her studying with kids that, in Patty’s words, “aren’t all there.”

Unfortunately for Patty, switching to a regular junior high looks to be more easily said than done given Lola’s doubts and fears about her legally-blind daughter’s ability to navigate life outside Mom’s protective cocoon.

Even Miss Hester (Clara Rodriguez, spot-on) has her reservations about a 9th-grader transferring into her school, suggesting that Patty wait a year, at which time both she and the students who’ve already spent the past two years bonding will be equally new to high school.

Justifiable as Lola and Miss Hester’s misgivings may be may be, Haverty’s play makes it clear from the get-go that neither woman has much to worry about, Patty’s post-middle-school future having already been revealed as a now 26-year-old “Trish” (the very lovely Kait Haire) gets ready to face her first day as a high school history teacher, a day considerably brightened by a meet-cute encounter with fellow teacher Hugo Thompson (Bobby Slaski, revealing breakout leading man chops).

Not only is Hugo tall, fair, handsome, and just shy and awkward enough not to let his good looks go to his head, he’s quite possibly the first man to enter Trish’s life since Mom objected to Patty’s friendship with their 78-year-old neighbor Calhoon Scruggs (a genial Lloyd Pedersen), as much out of a desire to be the one-and-only in her daughter’s life as to any legitimate fear that the septuagenarian might be anything other than a much-needed surrogate grandfather to her lonely, precocious child.

It’s Patty’s diary, recorded on cassette tapes, that ties In My Mind’s Eye’s two parallel plot threads together as past alternates with present, and in a number of instances Patty becomes indistinguishable from Trish.

The latter concept reaches its apex when both incarnations of the same character appear onstage in identical costumes, one observing the other, and for this reviewer at least, In My Mind’s Eye would work better without a conceit that can prove more than a bit confusing, especially when real-life 9th-grader Kirkner takes over Haire’s adult part and Haire plays an adolescent barely into her teens. (Having a 20something Hugo play at least one boyfriend-girlfriend scene opposite a 14-year-old “Trish” may not have been problematic in 1984 when the play debuted, but seems at the very least worth reconsidering in 2020.)

Though charged scenes between Patty and Lola make it easy to side with a daughter’s desire to break free of a needy, overbearing mother, it’s to playwright Haverty’s credit that we (and Trish) eventually get to see why Lola is the way she is, and if this doesn’t make her exactly lovable, at the very least it allows us to understand her very human failings.

Director Bruce Kimmel ensures smooth transitions across time zones aided by Douglas Gabrielle’s nuanced lighting and his own memory-play-ready incidental music. Michael Mullen’s just-right costumes capture both the late ‘60s and early ‘80, with special snaps for confectioning a couple of matching outfits for Patty/Trish. Leslie Young’s eclectic props and sound designer Steve Shaw melange of prerecorded voices* hit the mark as well.

Less effective is Pawena Sriha’s scenic design, one whose set pieces against a plain black backdrop on an otherwise bare floor leave too much empty space on the Group Rep stage, giving the design a somewhat unfinished look.

In My Mind’s Eye is produced by assistant director Bita Arefnia. Judy Bardin is stage manager.

Despite In My Mind’s Eye’s occasional missteps, The Group Rep’s revival of their 1984 hit is likely to resonate with anyone who’s ever suffered from “mother issues” as Patty and Trish’s shared journey towards adulthood offers more than its fair share of rewards.

*Clayton Conroy, Allie Elliott, Danielle Houch, Heidi Mendez, Jocelyn Riddle, Rena Strober

The Group Rep, Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.
www.thegrouprep.com

–Steven Stanley
February 28, 2020
Photos: Doug Engalla

Tags: Doug Haverty, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Group Rep