The most succinct first-person account of living with Alzheimer’s disease remains the one provided by the first person diagnosed with it. Auguste Deter was 51 years old and otherwise healthy when she was brought, in 1901, to Dr. Alois Alzheimer’s clinic in Frankfurt, Germany, with a strange case of what looked like premature senility characterized by confusion, volatile behavior, and severe memory lapses. “I have lost myself,” she said.
But lately Alice has begun tripping over ordinary words. She becomes disoriented jogging less than a mile from home. At first she chalks her memory problems up to stress and menopause, never dreaming that she could have dementia (though 10 percent of Alzheimer’s patients are under the age of 65). When things continue to worsen—she goes to the office in the middle of the night, has to be reintroduced to someone she met five minutes before at a party—she sees a neurologist, who gives her the bad news.
Dunford divides the title role between two actresses. Eva Barr is Alice as she’s seen by others: capable and confident at first, then quizzical, desperate, and increasingly childlike. Mariann Mayberry, meanwhile, plays Alice’s inner self, in charge of commentary—she’s like a cross between a Greek chorus and Jiminy Cricket. She too grows more foggy-headed as the disease progresses, eventually staggering around the set in a bathrobe and bunny slippers, unable to offer Alice much beyond moral support.
Through 5/19: Tue-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM; additional performances Thu 5/2 and 5/16, 3 PM
Lookingglass Theatre Company
Water Tower Water Works 821 N. Michigan
312-337-0665
lookingglasstheatre.org
$38-$68
