Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Ivoryton Playhouse is Original, Powerful, Funny, and Wise (5 stars)
It’s not about a convent. Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a family comedy, and a family drama, set in a family home, and centered on Linda (Autumn Eliza Sheffy), a teen girl in the 1970s caught between the past (her church, her father) and the future (her aunt, her younger sister, and her own life ambitions). The play absolutely draws you in. With 15 seconds you are captivated. The entire play is set in the living room of a family home, with everyone frozen as if in an old photograph. Then Linda walks through the room, bringing each to life with a touch.
We get it. This is the playwright’s memory, and the strong set design (Starlet Jacobs) and costuming (Elizabeth Saylor) are unmistakably the 1970s, without falling into parody. Such a grounding is needed for the antics that are about to follow! It all happens in Ivoryton Playhouse, in South Central Connecticut, south of Hartford, an old but well-maintained theater with comfortable seating, a New England gem that punches above its weight.
At many times, the story stops for narration, but in such an original, engaging way we can forget the “show, don’t tell” rule of writing. Unlike “The Wonder Years”, where the narrator is perhaps too self-congratulatory, narration in Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help is playful, not taking itself too seriously. The characters even acknowledge that they are in a memory and complain to the narrator, who, for example makes the memory of her father (Mike O’Shea, played gamely by Rod Brogan) dress up in drag to portray a local gossip. I admit there were times when I didn’t need or want to be told the emotional stakes, but overall, it worked.
Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help is laugh out loud funny, but is serious enough to have heart and to deliver something real to say. The cast is strong, especially the lead Linda (Autumn Eliza Sheffy) and the mother (Jo O’Shea, played by Amber Quick). There’s something magic about Jo’s physicality, building the story (seemingly effortlessly) beyond what’s in the dialogue. This play is absolutely one that rises or falls on the confidence and chemistry of its actors, and the love between the family is powerfully demonstrated by the cast, driving warmth even during conflict, and signaling to the audience that everything will be okay.
The play as written isn’t perfect. The narration is at times self-indulgent, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary is a song from World War I, not the 1970s, and the ending epilogue seems unnecessary and a mismatch for the comedic and “this might be true, this might not be true” tone of the show. The play as written slightly overreaches, at times assuming rather than earning how much the audience cares about these characters.
But, the originality, the strong topic, the humor of the script, and then so ably taken to a higher level by the strength of the production… I can’t resist a full 5 stars for Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It’s a must-see, even for someone like me who is not a woman, never had a sister, is not Catholic, and has no emotional connection to the groovy 1970s. It absolutely draws you in.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy, who played Linda, very kindly agreed to an interview.
Events INSIDER: Obviously you are not personally from the ’70s.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: No. From ’97, that’s the year I was born.
Events INSIDER: The play tries really hard to connect people who may not be familiar, talking about cell phones and the analog age, and so forth. How did you personally connect with the material?
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: First of all, I love the ’70s. I connect with the ’70s through music. I love Janis Joplin, Woodstock. I just produced a cabaret last year actually about Woodstock at 54 Below. https://www.broadwayworld.com/cabaret/article/RETURN-TO-WOODSTOCK-1969-Comes-to-54-Below-in-October-20240826
Events INSIDER: Wow.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: And I think that that is my way in to understand the culture and the vibe. I know going for vibe. But the texts really helps us to connect. We’re guided by our texts and then we add our connection to it. I’m not Irish Catholic personally, but it helped guide me. And then you add your own flair to it.
Events INSIDER: The play is, at times, irreverent, but also sincere. How do you mix those styles? Is there anything that you do physically or with your tone of voice to switch styles?
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: I think I do it without even thinking about it, but it goes from talking direct address to the audience [ as the author, older and remembering ] back into when I was 19 [ as the author, the age she was in this 1970s story ]. The narration is coming from a forty-year-old woman who’s lost both her parents and that’s where she’s narrating from. But then she goes back into her nineteen-year-old self and I think it comes with a little lightness, a little comedy, I think finds itself best when it’s sincere. I think that’s really the truth, because life is funny when it’s most relatable.
Events INSIDER: That’s interesting.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: Yeah, I think I try to just be sincere with it and that’s when it’s often the most funny.
Events INSIDER: The first thing you do is to grab the audience, speaking directly to them and pulling them in with your tone. The play only works if your confidence is supreme, which it was. Where does that come from?
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Events INSIDER: Obviously, if you don’t go for it, if you don’t commit to the happy narration that’s supposed to get the audience to “come along with me!”, it probably wouldn’t work as well.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: I agree. I think going completely into it, and I love being silly. I think Jackie [ Director Jacqueline Hubbard ] really allowed me to be fully myself on stage, which is really exciting, to speak directly at people and to bring my whole self. I graduated from the Boston Conservatory in 2019, studied theater my entire life, did some improv in Chicago. I just try to use every life experience, whether it be exactly relatable or a touch to bring into it to be the most sincere and to be the most confident of myself. Because obviously I’m not Linda, but you can find ways in which you are and those are the ways that really connect.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: Also I’m from Connecticut. I grew up in Southington. I live in New Haven now with my husband. We’re both, he’s a musician. I’m a performer. And I’ve just performed my entire life. I love doing it. I hope I get to do it till the day I die.
Events INSIDER: Let’s talk about the dad, the father in the show [Mike O’Shea, played gamely by Rod Brogan] . On the face of it, he’s not likable, and yet somehow he becomes relatable. How is that possible?
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: Yeah, I think Linda says, “Dad wasn’t around a lot. He mostly stopped in for meals and declarations.” I think you see, he loved his kids. He was doing everything he could to provide for his family. He loved his family. Everything he did and said, he thought he was doing it to protect his family. Maybe he was. He knew on the up-and-up in the ’70s, he was more of a conservative man, but he did it because he loved us.
Events INSIDER: He’s doing the best he can. In the show he says, he didn’t know there was more, something more modern, than following his own father’s habits.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: No, he didn’t. And I think that that’s the beauty in it because every parent tries to do the best they can. And then as a kid you think, “Okay, I’m going to take the best from my parents and then not do that one thing that I hated.”
Events INSIDER: Any closing thoughts?
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: I hope people keep coming back to the Ivoryton Playhouse. It’s a beautiful place. I was just in My Fair Lady here. It’s the most beautiful family connective theater. And everyone who works here cares so much about it. Every single person they bring in is, they find the most authentic kind people. I’ve never met a mean person here.
Events INSIDER: It doesn’t seem like it’s a community. It seems like they’re shooting for the Moon.
Autumn Eliza Sheffy: Yeah, they bring in Broadway performers. They bring in New York performers. They do auditions across the country and bring in the people that they love the best for their shows.
Events INSIDER: Thank you so much.
Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help closes this weekend, but you can still buy tickets, go go go! See ivorytonplayhouse.org.