SUCH SMALL HANDS


Adam Szymkowicz writes writes about Alzheimer’s from a spouse/caretaker’s point of view and does so with humor, compassion, and perception in Such Small Hands, a powerful Chance Theater World Premiere.

 It’s a day like any other for septuagenarian couple Paul (Bruce Goodrich) and Marie (Juliet Fischer).

The retired architect needs to be reminded by his wife that he doesn’t take sugar in his coffee, that indeed he’s never taken sugar in his coffee.

He has to be told once again that their now adult, married-with-kid son James doesn’t live with his parents anymore despite Paul’s insistence that “Of course he does,” and even when reminded, he must be re-reminded that “James doesn’t live here.”

And Marie must once again deal with her husband’s insistence that she’ll be better off after he’s “gone,” that he can get around perfectly well without his cane (he can’t), and that no matter that Marie’s suggestion that having someone else in the house “to help” might not be such a bad idea, he’s perfectly content to have his wife be his sole caretaker and “not some male nurse.”

It doesn’t help that Paul is battling not only dementia but cancer, or that he refuses to take pain medication preferring instead to tough it out no matter the toll it takes on his wife, or that he seems intent on offing himself (with Marie’s help of course), and the sooner the better.

Marie has been there, done that, day after day, and so today will be just another day, not all that different from yesterday, or from what tomorrow will be.

This is their life, and Marie seems more than willing, happy even, to take her wedding vow to love and cherish Paul “in sickness” as she once had “in health” because that’s what love is.

Over the course of Such Small Hands’ seventy-five-minute running time, playwright Szymkowicz takes us through twelve or so hours of Paul and Marie’s life together, and if his subject matter seems rather grimmer than say his crime-fighting female superhero action comedy Hearts Like Fists or even his edgy dark romcom Nerve (a 2011 Chance Theater hit), Szymkowicz finds more a bit of humor amidst the couple’s otherwise gloomy, doomy circumstances.

Not only that, but the playwright has come up with an inspired final couple of minutes that make his entire play make perfect sense.

It helps enormously to have Matthew McCray directing this intimate two-hander with the same degree of inspiration that made 2023’s big-production Rent a best-ever in my book.

It helps too that Ganymede Projects (i.e. Goodrich in designer mode) have taken Szymkowicz’s dialog-plus-stage-directions script and given it the most brilliant of scenic designs, a living area adorned with family memorabilia and occupied by couple of wooded cabinets that turn out to be far more than meets the eye.

Ganymede’s, i.e. Goodrich’s just-right costumes, Azra King Abadi’s subtly beautiful lighting, and D.B. Hovis’s memories-reviving sound design are topnotch as well, as is an inspired projection design.

Still, none of this would work without the pair of multifaceted star turns delivered by Goodrich as the endlessly irascible Paul and Fischer as the endlessly patient Marie, who fully encapsulate forty years of marital devotion in just an hour and a quarter. In a word, they are both superb.

Jordyn Nieblas-Galvan is stage manager. Anna Jennings is dramaturg. James Markoski is sound engineer. Casting is by Shinshin Yuder Tsai. “With You” is written by Barry Hovis (music) and Szymkowicz (lyrics) and performed by the composer and Dylan Hovis.

Certain to resonate with anyone who has known, dealt with, or loved someone in the process of losing their very self, Such Small Hands is a play (and its Chance Theater World Premiere production) you won’t soon forget.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. Through March 30. Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00, Sundays at 3:00.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
March 8, 2025
Photos: Doug Catiller

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