By Mike Dunham

Annia Wyndham and Rod Mehrtens: Nasty divorcee meets Bert the plumber in Judd Lear Silverman's "Heart." Photo: Gaylord Spurgeon / Anchorage Community Theatre.

Judd Lear Silverman’s play “Heart” has received readings and workshops from New York to California, Florida to Valdez. On Friday night it finally had its premiere at Alaska Wild Berry Theatre.

Billed as a comedy, it also has a powerfully poignant component, sometimes flirting with —yet never quite becoming — maudlin. Directed by Kevin T. Bennett, the well-performed show is the most ambitious piece Anchorage Community Theatre has produced in several years.

The set centers on a hospital room where plumber Robert Bixler (Scott Baker) is dying after a stroke, almost motionless and, except for one word, speechless throughout the two acts. That character’s voice, awareness and memories are presented by a second character, his consciousness, “Bert” (Rod Mehrtens), also on stage the whole time.
Into the room — or Bert’s imagination — drift the cast of his life: his wife and childhood sweetheart (Scarlet Kittylee Boudreaux); his alienated older son (Sean Kenney) and obedient, but drugging younger son (Carl Bright); an envious rival (Thomas Higgins); his partner in an affair gone bad (Annia Wyndham); his long-deceased father (Rick Barreras).
What do we tell the family?: Erick Hayden and Ralph Lynch debate what to do with comatose Scott Baker in Judd Lear Silverman's "Heart." Photo: Gaylord Spurgeon / Anchorage Community Theatre.
Debating his fate are the cynical and egotistic Dr. Richardson (Erick Hayden), celebrity surgeon Dr. Morse (Ralph Lynch) and exasperated nurse (Linda Benson), assisted by mute orderlies (Monica Wuotto-Sullivan, Andy Collins and Jessica Levesque, who also has the brief part of Bert’s daughter-in-law.)

Dr. Morse has invented “the ultimate artificial heart” that may or may not prevent Bixley from dying before his time. “But who determines when my time is?” Bert asks in one of several rhetorical ruminations over the value of life and the abhorrence of death.

If people were really convinced that a better world awaited them, there wouldn’t be so much money in medicine, one character observes. Yet doctors are no more than “overpaid guess-men,” says the nurse. Is being their guinea pig really worth the pain?

Dr. Morse argues that the patient who agrees to such an experimental treatment will advance medical knowledge that will benefit others and be a hero akin to an astronaut. Besides, says Bert, “(If) you don’t stick around, you miss things,” like a child’s graduation or the birth of a grandchild.

Aside from the discussion of medical ethics, as he wobbles between the world of the almost living and the world of the nearly dead, Bert wrestles with worries over how his survivors will manage without him and with the mistakes he’s made in the past. “We all screw it up somehow,” he’s assured.

A little choreography, courtesy of Hayden, stirred up the intrinsically static set. The jokes were sometimes lost in the brittle acoustics of the theater, though attention to enunciation and pacing overcame much of that as the play progressed. Nonetheless, there were few places where someone in the house wasn’t snickering and at least three energetic exits were accompanied by loud laughter and applause.

While the writing solves no great riddles, Silverman does accomplish the neat trick of turning Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential conclusion in “No Exit” — that hell is other people — on its head by suggesting that our happiness may depend on being willing to “go through hell for other people.”

Sound problems aside, the 100-seat theatre is a visually agreeable facility. Steep arena seating makes for excellent lines of sight from each of the comfortable seats. Wine, beer and snacks are sold in the concession area and may be brought into the auditorium.

But it can be tricky for first-timers to find. It’s at 5225 Juneau St., next to Alaska Wild Berry Products, off International Airport Road, just east of the Old Seward Highway, across the street from Sourdough Mining Company, where you can park if the Wild Berry lot is full. Look for the locomotive and follow the lights along a path that, depending on weather, may present the challenge of slick, packed snow.

“Heart” will be presented at 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat. and 3 p.m. Sun. through Jan. 24. Tickets are $18-$21, available at actalaska.org or by calling 868-4913.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.