Memories of you

The life of Elizabeth Smart pivoted on a turbulent affair that produced four children and her one book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Yet the dramatic strength of Wendy Lill's play resides in her clear-eyed portrayal of Elizabeth Smart's life not as a sacrifice to one great literary work, but of that work as a record of one great life lived. When her resentful, drug-dependent daughter Rose comes to visit, mother and daughter confront each other with their own distinctly different visions of the past. Rose remembers that her father used her mother; Elizabeth remembers that she chose the father of her children, and that she did not regret that choice.