I feel very strongly that I should start this review with a full disclosure. I went to graduate school with Dan Lauria, the playwright and star of the 2023 season opener at Shadowland. And of all the student actors in the Dramatic Arts Department of University of Connecticut, I picked Dan out as someone who was going to “make it” in show biz. And I was right!

In later years, my friends got tired of me yelling out whenever I would see Dan on TV in “The Wonder Years,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Dr. Quinn,” “NCIS,” “The Resident” and others – “I went to school with him!”
So, back in the late ‘70s, I knew of Dan’s acting prowess, having seen him in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and having acted with him in “A View from the Bridge.” But what I didn’t know was how good a playwright he would become.
The world premiere of Dan Lauria’s play “Just Another Day” took place at Shadowland Stages in Ellenville. It was a co-production with Great Barrington Stage Company.

Two people are onstage – a man and a woman, he a comedy writer, she a sophisticated poet – both in their 70s – masterfully played by Dan Lauria and star in her own right, Patty McCormack (“The Bad Seed,” “The Miracle Worker.” “The Sopranos” and more). They sit and talk, and trade barbs and jokes, all while trying to figure out who they are and how they know each other. In the distance, a loud, clanging, obnoxious bell sounds whenever they touch, or if the conversation gets heated. Who are they? Where are they? Why are they in this place?
To answer those questions would be giving too much away, and would spoil the beauty and the joy of getting there.

And joy and so many other emotions run rampant during “Just Another Day,” flawlessly steered by Director James Glossman, who most recently has given us “Safe Home” (his collaboration with Tom Hanks), John Cleese’s “Bang Bang!” and Jeff Daniels’ “Flint.”

There are wonderful scenes during which the couple recalls old movies, and there’s howling audience laughter when the Woman interviews the Man as God’s Special Effects Man during a show called “You Should Have Been There.” There are also scenes that are tender and sometimes sad, but hiding under all the time is love.

Lauria’s writing is magnificent, full of wit and wisdom like, “As long as we create, we are not lost …” and “There is no past, so let us construct the present,” and “We must laugh, we have to remember to laugh …” The dialogue is also acerbic at times, and poignant at others. This is a play about memories, performed by two actors of outstanding talent who are a delight to watch.

McCormack and Lauria match wits in a tennis competition of pointed barbs, lightning-fast discourse, tender moments and comic respite. This play, this story is warm and meaningful, evocative, eloquent, heartachingly real and often, hilariously funny. It’s the perfect match of drama and comedy.