Joining us today on RNL- Fun Friday! we have Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated actress, Patty McCormack; & Dan Lauria, best known for his portrayal of the stern, but loving, money-conscious father on the TV series The Wonder Years. Dan Lauria wrote and starred in his new play, Just Another Day, with Patty McCormack. Dan and Patty are finishing up their run of the show at the New Jersey Repertory Company.

ABOUT JUST ANOTHER DAY

“Just Another Day” unfolds on a park bench where the Man (Lauria), who had a career as a comic, and the Woman (McCormack), who was a celebrated poet, sit and chat as they try to remember their connection to each other. In Act I, the banter is barbed as the Man tries to jog the Woman’s memories of their time together. The pressure to remember puts her on the defensive and she strikes back with her overstuffed “lexical treasury” of devastating insults that require a dictionary to feel their full weight. Rather than find common ground the duo seems to be moving farther apart, until he begins talking about old movies, unleashing shared memories of “His Girl Friday,” “My Man Godfrey,” and “Gunga Din,” and she offers a hilarious imitation of Bette Davis.

In Act II the roles are reversed, and the Woman must coax the now-morose Man to return to one of his famous routines, which Lauria delivers with practiced ease, along with some eye-rolling jokes. When they worry about how to live today when they can’t recall yesterday, the poet reminds the comic she once served as his sounding board, and they should simply start fresh. They work together, creating new building blocks to develop jokes for him and new story lines for her.

Their interactions are occasionally discouraged — no touching — by a bell, a reminder that they are not independent any longer but part of a carefully monitored community that is mindful of their safety. Although they resent the bell’s interruptions, it serves as an anchor to their present circumstances.

Anyone who has conversed with a loved one struggling with memory loss will recognize the fear and frustration of trying to assemble the pieces of one’s life into some coherent order. But they will also notice the comfort that sometimes comes with the retelling of old stories. In the program notes, Lauria says the play was inspired by his visits to an old friend who is in memory care and has difficulty remembering friends and family. But his friend’s memories of the New York Yankees are sharp and detailed and telling those stories often helps him reconnect to the present.

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