Imagine watching your parent’s life transform from vibrant to chaotic due to a degenerative disease and the stress from not knowing if it was passed to either you and/or your siblings?
Could I Have This Dance? is an award winning play written by by Doug Haverty that follows the Glendenning family as sisters Monica (Anna Connelly) and Amanda (Anica Petrovic) take over their mother Jeanette’s (Clara Rodriguez) thriving public relations firm as they watch her suffer from Huntington’s Disease under the dutiful eye of their father Hank (Lloyd Pedersen).
Set in 1987, technology hasn’t advanced so having to transcribe voice messages onto a notepad, have a multi-line phone system (pre-call waiting) and showing up unannounced because you don’t like being left on hold, are nostalgic references to simpler times.
Amanda and Monica have a shared experience of avoiding the elephant in the room (Huntington’s) while wondering if they will suffer the same fate as their mother. Watching the painstaking burden it places on their father, it is no wonder they constantly push away the men in their lives to avoid the awkardwness of explaining their mother’s condition when they see her.
The sisters can’t avoid their love life and professional lives from intersecting as they work in a make shift office space inside their home.
Enter Andy Shephard (Colin McMann) a suave internationally recognized photographer who works for the sisters and Monica’s love interest and Errol Watkins (Sean Babcock) whose named after the great Errol Flynn who has become enamored with Mandy (Amanda) who is thrice divorced and dreads second dates.
Could I Have This Dance explores the nuances of familial relationships – their duty to one another while the diagnosis of a potential life debilitating disease hangs over their heads.
This is a touching story about patience, perseverance and making the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love. Special kudos to Clara Rodriguez for her remarkable portrayal of Jeanette!
Could I Have This Dance is now playing at The Group Rep, 10900 Burbank Blvd, North Hollywood.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 2 p.m.; thru May 5. www.thegrouprep.com (Running time two hours and ten minutes, with a ten-minute intermission.)
