A Play About Living: Exploring the Value of Time Through the Magic of Theater By Julie Zimmermann

Actor-Writer Patricia Van Tassel

Dorothy Lillian Phelps (Patricia Van Tassel) in a photo by Bo Elfving

Dorothy Lillian Phelps (Patricia Van Tassel) photo by Bo Elfving

MARGARETVILLE – “Naps are wonderful!” opines Dorothy Lillian Phelps, “they take you to faraway places where you dream and dance on tightropes!”

Recent theater goers were not napping but may have been transported by the performance of writer/actor Patricia Van Tassel, a regional favorite with roots in the Catskills. “The Last Day of Dorothy Lillian Phelps” is Van Tassel’s take on one woman’s final day and completion of all of her lifetimes. It recently enjoyed a full production at The Open Eye Theater.

Time plays a significant role in the telling of Dorothy’s remembering: the vignettes of her childhood, the realities and disappointments—and joys—of both her young and aged womanhood. Left alone as a child, Dorothy’s best and most reliable friend becomes the family’s tall imposing grandfather clock. Mum and Daddy’s vaudevillian career found young ‘Lilly’ imaginatively creative and so the Clock ‘Father Arthur Richard Time,’ is christened and becomes a lifelong constant companion.

Making a friend of time is a theme of this piece: “its temporality and ungovernable length,” as Dorothy puts it.

The clock’s precise rhythm becomes the secondary character in this one-woman show. Speaking to the essence of time, Van Tassel breaks down both the expansiveness and brevity of its precision. Her play deals with one woman’s catalogue of memories, gems of wisdom, regrets, and advice on her very last day, the day she has always had the premonition of the appointed time she will cease to exist.

It’s an important piece for a varied demographic. The play has received great feedback from the ‘talkbacks’ held following each performance to date, from its development at Ancram Center for the Arts through its recent engagements. Understandably, “The Last Day of Dorothy Lillian Phelps” hits home with the over-fifty set, but its writer also made certain there was no age set that could not embrace its many messages.

“It just came to me. It wrote itself and then came thru me. Although Ancram Center’s Lab Artist Residency gave me a base (for this show), The Open Eye and I have a relationship dating back to 1996. Amie Brockway has directed me in many shows, especially solo shows. I learned a lot from Amie over the years. She introduced me to my acting coach Gene Lasco, and others. After first writing this show in 2014, The Open Eye helped me get together a public reading-in 2015. Erwin Karl did the lighting and Amie played the Clock and read the stage directions. Those were our initial performances. On the 100th birthday of the theater’s co-founder Jean Erdman, there was a large public celebration, and I was asked to perform a short segment of it.”

“I’ve now worked with Associate Artistic Director Michelle Macau several times. When I received confirmation of a grant for “The Last Day…” I asked if they would be interested in hosting performances and they were very excited about it. David Hill jumped onboard as designer and performed as the Clock. And we got to work on what turned out to be a very successful experience. Really, I’ve always just felt that The Open Eye is my home theater because of all of the ideas I’ve worked on there as well as the great people I’ve met and had an opportunity to work with.”

“The Last Day of Dorothy Lillian Phelps” was directed by Sandra Boynton who Van Tassel will continue to work with as they take the show to a variety of different venues this fall, hoping to raise discussions about time, facing the end of life and ultimately, what matters in life.

Now performing at The Open Eye Theater on Saturday’s is The Hundred Acre Wood, based on stories of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne, conceived and directed by Amie Brockway. Opening on July 31 and running through August 10 is Summer Shortcuts XV, featuring six new ten-minute plays, six directors and eleven actors. In late September the world premiere of The Springvale Armadillo by Donald Lofthus will take the stage. The Open Eye Theater is located at 960 Main Street in Margaretville. Tickets for all performances can be obtained at www.theopeneyetheater.org