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Octogenarian Shirley Timmreck debuts
BY LIZA WEISSTUCH
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What struck Shirley Timmreck when she used to visit her aunt in a Baton Rouge retirement home was not the cheery conversation the two would have over tea. It wasn’t her mentally slipping aunt’s ability to play the sociable hostess, either. Timmreck was always confounded when, as she took her leave, her aunt would ask, "Have you seen Shirley lately?" "If that’s senility, then it’s not so bad for the person in it," says the 83-year-old Louisiana native from current home in Homer, Alaska. And her play Circles of Time, which will receive its world premiere at the Lyric Stage tonight (August 7), is spun around this paradox. "My aunt was evidently not aware of who I was when I was there, but I wouldn’t have dreamed it until she said that. Maybe she was senile, but she didn’t know it. She was happy in some world." Set in Baton Rouge in 1980, Circles focuses on a troupe of aging Southern belles in a nursing home. They learn from a new resident, a charismatic and whimsical character whom Timmreck based on her aunt, how easily they can retrieve memories, and the euphoric escape such retrieval affords. But the script’s journey from its origins as a musical called Louisa (it was first performed in Alaska) to its present incarnation as a mysticism-tinged, Southern-charmed drama slated for a Boston premiere as the initial outing of Kaplan/Bullins Productions, seems fit for the stage in its own right. For seven years, Timmreck went to the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, with a script in hand. At the Last Frontier, which has been attended by such standard bearers as Arthur Miller, John Guare, and Edward Albee (who played a role in its founding), plays are workshopped and readings take place. So do competitions. Local luminary and Obie-winning playwright Ed Bullins was a judge and mentor in Valdez in 2000; he encountered Circles and was taken by it. "It made my heart quiver, and not many plays can do that. When I get that feeling, I know that playwriting is a craft. A play that moves me, I guess, is a work of art, a pleasure, a challenge." That emotional wallop was felt equally by Mort Kaplan, Bullins’s long-time friend and colleague at Northeastern University. Kaplan has directed many plays, including several by Bullins (though Daniel Gidron will do this one). "It brought a tear to my eye — and I’m not easy like that either. All the plays I’ve done in my time have four-letter words and partially naked women in them." The pair started talking to Timmreck about getting the play optioned and produced, but not, she says, without warning her: "Don’t be impatient, this will take years." Without delay, however, Bullins and Kaplan had a second line installed in her home and shipped her a fax machine for easy transmission of rewrites. Since then, various drafts have evolved and been read on East Coast stages, one at New York’s Abingdon Theatre and a later one at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. When Timmreck says, "It’s been a long haul," it’s hard to tell whether she’s referring to the play or to her life. But now the play’s time, at least, has come. Circles of Time is presented by Kaplan/Bullins Productions at the Lyric Stage, 140 Clarendon Street, August 7 through 23. Tickets are $20 to $35; call (617) 437-7172.
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