This play is about Alzheimer’s. That is the major thing you have to be aware of, because if you’ve known someone with the affliction, this can be hard going. The Waverly Gallery is a very good play about Alzheimer’s, with some lighthearted stuff to make it all easier to take (until it isn’t). And at the heart of this revival is a stunning performance from the legendary Elaine May as the person suffering from Alzheimer’s, one Gladys Green.

One of the things that makes The Waverly Gallery more bearable – but ultimately more tragic – is that Gladys has a wonderful personality: intellectual, kind and generous. After working as a lawyer and social activist in her younger days, Gladys operated a small art gallery in Greenwich Village for many decades. The play finds her still running the gallery in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the disease is affecting her more and more, and focuses on the effect of her decline on her family, especially her grandson Daniel (Lucas Hedges, who underplays the part marvelously).

May has the gargantuan task of inhabiting this vital, bright woman who thinks she’s still in full command of her faculties, while also showing us, scene by scene, exactly how much she’s losing her grip, bit by awful bit. It takes a razor-sharp mind to convey that change over the course of an evening, and May is sharp as a tack – even if Gladys isn’t – giving us a mesmerizing portrayal of fragility and decline. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.