Connie (Kyra Sedgwick, right) tries unsuccessfully to get her daughter Lucy (Madison Ferris) to do her physical therapy exercises in All of Me by Laura Winters.
Who says that people with wheelchairs who text to communicate can’t fall in love, or that their radically different upbringings, social classes, life goals, and medical diagnoses preclude joy with each other? Are they, like lottery ticket holders, more likely to be struck by lightning than love? All of Me’s playwright Laura Winters and director Ashley Brooke Monroe weave a moving and humorous tale of two lonely, bright, and funny individuals whose disabilities don’t define them or their life choices.
Alfonso (Danny J. Gomez) both flirts with Lucy and encourages her to take charge of her life.
Lucy (Madison Ferris), diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at age 16, meets Alfonso (Danny J. Gomez), paralyzed since infancy, while waiting for their rides in a hospital parking lot in Schenectady, N.Y. Their motorized wheelchairs and voice-assisted communication devices facilitate their introductions. Alfonso, well dressed and articulate, is immediately attracted to Lucy, who is funny, direct and non-apologetic about her off-color, suggestive remarks to him. He is a New York City transplant, working in data science for the county public health service. Lucy, a former jazz singer, can no longer sing. She hands him her card, and before long, he asks her out, and she accepts.
This romance could have been a done deal, but the spontaneous love is obstructed by well-meaning but toxic family interference and dysfunction from both sides. Alfonso’s elegant Latina mother, Elena (Florencia Lozano), a yoga teacher married to an absentee Wall Street big shot, provides him with an upscale apartment. Lucy is awed by it, but Elena, who drops in regularly to monitor how her son is managing, is condescending to Lucy and her family. When Lucy’s overbearing, manicurist mother Connie (Kyra Sedgwick), who uses a cane herself (for an unnamed affliction), visits Alfonso’s apartment to check out Lucy’s “date,” she finds Elena patronizing and leaves.
Flip the scenario. Lucy’s family—Connie, Lucy, her sister Jackie (Lily Mae Harrington) and Jackie’s ne’er-do-well fiancé Moose (Brian Furey Morabito) go to see Jackie perform at a local jazz club. Alfonso also attends, and afterward visits Lucy at home; his wheelchair is too wide for her doorway, so he converses with Lucy outside it. Connie plants herself upright on the couch, puts on headphones, turns up her music, and falls asleep. She awakens, jarred by their sexually explicit conversation:
Connie: You need to get out of here, right now. I mean, how dare you? In my house…
Alfonso: We are consenting adults.
Connie: You are talking about my daughter. …
Alfonso: Your daughter who is an adult. Not a helpless child.
Connie: She can’t even put a bowl on the counter! She’s a handicapped girl who could be taken advantage of any moment.
Alfonso: Handicapped isn’t the right word. We say disabled now.
Connie: I’m not gonna be lectured on PC crap in my own house.
Alfonso resists his mother Elena’s (Florencia Lozano) interference with his relationships and lifestyle decisions. Photographs by Monique Carboni.
Other than a collapsed ramp, Lucy’s home lacks accessibility, in part because Connie’s hopes for Lucy’s future end at being a Walmart greeter. It’s no surprise, then, that Lucy’s mobility and independence are not priorities. Connie denies her own disability and substitutes Lucy’s care for moving on with her own life. When Jackie lists her own contributions to Lucy’s care, they bicker. Only Alfonso seeks to empower Lucy and encourages her to register at a local community college.
In Winters’s tightly written, complex script, Lucy and Alfonso may have physical disabilities, but they are healthier in many ways than Connie and Elena, whose behavior could severely cripple their children, or even Jackie and Moose. Also, despite financial and educational disparities between the families, they have more in common than they acknowledge, including family addictions and parental control issues.
Ferris and Gomez, both disabled actors, are enchanting as two gifted souls trying to escape stifling relationships. Sedgwick is exceptional as Connie, who believes she is saving Lucy, but is more dangerous for her than the outside world. Harrington, Morabito, and Lozano provide comic relief but pragmatic and extralegal solutions to their problems.
Brett Banakis’s and Edward T. Morris’s tri-part settings underscore class differences but also obstacles to mobility in non-accessible environments. Sarah LeFeber’s costumes delineate class—Lucy’s family’s casual garb faces off with Alfonso’s preppy button-down shirts and blazers and Elena’s high couture. Monroe’s direction has imbued the hot-button issues of respect and resources for the disabled with great humor, through spot-on timing and a perfect ensemble. In its nuanced exposition, character development, comedy, and highly charged delivery, All of Me provides a window into the multidimensional world of people with disabilities.
All of Me runs at Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd Street) through June 16. Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and Saturday at 8:00. Matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the box office at (917) 935-4242 or visit thenewgroup.org.
Playwright: Laura Winters
Director: Ashley Brooke Monroe
Scenic Design: Brett Banakis & Edward T. Morris
Lighting Designer: Reza Behjat
Costume Design: Sara LeFeber
Sound Designer: Matt Otto
Fight Director: Thomas Schall
