Sharr White's "The Other Place" will surely end up as a film with Meryl Streep as the lead. Do not wait until then to go see it. Director Rob Ruggerio's version at the Studio Theatre at Rep is too significant, too intimate to miss.
Juliana Smithton is a brilliant PhD in mid-life, doing important research on proteins in the brain that mis-replicate. Now she's with a pharmaceutical company, speaking to physicians about a drug she created to offset the brain degradation that results from the protein problem. But something is wrong – that's clear from the start. Next, we see her in a physician's office, angry, defensive, almost paranoid, complaining that her physician-husband whom she's divorcing has insisted on this unnecessary consultation after what she insists on calling "an episode" at the medical conference.
She has a strong history of brain cancer in her family, and is sure that's what caused this episode; why is her oncologist spouse sending her to someone else? (Interestingly, no one mentions that treating members of one's own family is a fairly strong taboo in medical circles.) The marriage is falling apart; their adolescent daughter disappeared years ago, perhaps running off with her post-doctoral fellow in the lab and she is sure her husband is having at least one affair.
No plot spoilers from me beyond this point; better to get caught up in the back-and-forth net of life and diagnosis that, even if the early discussion of things like ribonucleic acid are
confusing, lure us in. And it's here, too, that I should disclose that I was a nurse for umpty-ump decades, a fair amount of which was specializing in oncology.
Kate Levy, playing Juliana, is about as right as it's possible to be. Smart, high-verbal and bouncing off the walls, her personality shifts are, almost literally, mesmerizing. Ward Duffy gives her husband warmth along with his anger at his wife's behavior, which has been becoming increasingly volatile over the past several years. Their daughter, the other physician and a neighbor are the work of Amelia McClain, who differentiates well among them. Clark Scott Michael appears briefly but competently as the post-doc and a nurse.
A wonderful set by Luke Hegel-Cantarella is mostly post-modern but slides into traditional for a couple of significant scenes, and the lighting of John Lasiter enhances all. The sole weakness is the script sliding into a soft landing that doesn't feel nearly transient enough. Aside from that, Ruggerio's work is up to his usual splendid standards.
The Other Place
through Feb. 9
Studio Theatre
Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
314-968-4925