This relatable and touching play explores themes of family, change, and the passage of time with warmth and insight.

Painting Churches, written by Tina Howe, was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist.  The play is about the relationship between an artist’s daughter and her aging parents. Catherine Hayashi makes her directorial debut at the Iron Horse Theatre Company in Ambridge.

One of Howe’s best-known works, Painting Churches, has been well-received by critics and theater-goers. Once you have seen it, you will understand why it is so popular.

There are only three characters in the drama: Gardner Church (Patrick Conner), a poet at the end of his career, his wife Fanny (Lynne O’Meara), and their daughter Mags (Sarah Brunner), an art teacher who is just beginning to experience professional success as a portrait painter.

The story centers on Fanny and Gardner’s move to a smaller home, an event for which Mags finally came home after more than a year spent without visiting her parents. While home, Mags tells her parents that she wants to paint a portrait of them, although getting her parents to sit for the portrait is more complicated than she thought. It is through the dual lens of the family’s packing up and Mags’ insistence that the portrait be painted that we see a story powerfully told.

While Gardner’s increasing forgetfulness is a central and essential theme, this story is not just about memory loss and aging parents. It is also a story about a controlling mother who pulls everyone into her reality and a daughter struggling to find and embrace her identity.

The play is about the fragility and strength of family relations, of family members with competing memories of the same event, and how those memories shape the family dynamic.  Painting Churches is both unconventional and unforgettable.

TICKETS AND DETAILS

The Iron Horse Theatre Company’s production of Painting Churches has performances on August 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 23,  and 24 at their theatre in Ambridge. Tickets at https://ironhorsetheatrecompany.ticketleap.com/painting-churches/

Categories: Arts and Ideas, Show Previews

Tags: Cathrine Hayashi, Iron Horse Theatre Company, Lynn O'Meara, Painting Churches, Patrick Conner, Sarah Brunner