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Dorothea is an intensely curious woman who always has an eccentric project. She gives her daughter, Artie, a pair of wings and makes her try to fly. Artie is a brilliant biochemist who runs away for years and finds it almost impossible to talk to her mother or her daughter, Echo, who is obsessed with words and is a spelling-bee champion.

These three characters, each struggling to express herself as an individual, make up the dysfunctional family in Lee Blessing's "Eleemosynary," about to open at Pygmalion Productions. Ironically, the play's title means "charitable," and love is an emotion the members of this family find it difficult to show.

Jeremy Chase, who is on Pygmalion's board and has acted with the company, suggested the play. He is a fan of Blessing's work and thought "Eleemosynary" was a natural choice for Pygmalion since it has three great roles for women. "I'm attracted to plays that have a central character that is driven to live life on their own terms by whatever means necessary," he says. "In this case, all three characters each have their own strong independent streak. However, they are also family; they are interdependent on each other, [and] that creates conflict. They're a very flawed family."

Chase, who is directing the production, discovered an interesting local connection when he started researching the play. Julie Boyd, who played Echo in the original production, is from Ogden and went through the theater program at the University of Utah. He invited her to attend this production; she can't make it but offered some valuable insights.

He's also delighted with his cast. Barb Gandy, who plays Dorothea, and Tracie Merrill, who portrays Artie, are familiar faces at Pygmalion. Gandy played Mary McCarthy in Pygmalion's 2015 production of "Hellman v. McCarthy," which Chase also acted in, and was Halie in Silver Summit's "Buried Child" later that season. Merrill played civil-rights activist Viola Liuzzo in Pygmalion's "Selma '65" last spring and mostly recently portrayed Wobbly Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in Plan-B's "One Big Union."

The newcomer to the company is Sydney Shoell, who plays Echo. She is studying theater at Westminster College and is a graduate of the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts. Gandy says Chase has done a great job making Shoell feel comfortable with the two older actors, who already knew each other. He invited everyone to his house for the initial play reading and begins each rehearsal with music to relax and focus the cast before diving into that day's work.

Chase thinks Gandy is perfectly cast. "Dorothea's a bit of an eccentric character," he observes, "and I'm not trying to stereotype Barb, but she can inhabit that world very easily. Now the fun part is exploring that further and nuancing it."

Gandy agrees Dorothea is a good fit. "First, she's absolutely the right age range for me, and second, it's a great role — a big, fat, challenging role," she says. "She's eccentric, but she's also conventional in ways, and that dichotomy of being flighty and off on these strange projects, yet having a set of rules and stubbornness, I relate to personally. I recognize I'm quirky, and I do theater, but I work at a bank," she sums up, laughing.

She finds the role challenging, though. "The scenes go back and forth in time, and some of them pretty abruptly," she explains, "and we're moving quickly from one to the other. And the other [thing] is moving up and down emotionally. There will be a really funny scene that morphs into a very intense scene and fast. We've got to ride the roller coaster and let go."

Chase identifies another challenge: "A lot of the conflict is spelled out obviously, and it would be easy to just look at these women and say, 'Gosh, this is one dysfunctional family,' but we're trying to find those moments of warmth and love, too, because there is love, [although] it's often misguided." He says the cast is mining those moments, "and that's ultimately going to create more richly portrayed characters."

Although "Eleemosynary" was written in the 1980s, Chase and Gandy feel it has something to say to today's audiences. "A lot of that stuff still holds — estranged relationships and meeting potential and not cutting yourself short," Gandy explains. "We know that."

She's hoping audiences will "recognize something in this family relationship that they can relate to in their own. Every family has ups and downs and pushes and pulls and quirks. … I want them to come along on the journey with us, and I hope it's not a foreign journey, that it's 'yes, yes, I relate to this.' "

If nothing else, it's worth seeing the play just for the language. Because of Echo's involvement with the National Spelling Bee, "Eleemosynary" overflows with interesting words, many of which acquire symbolic weight in the play. "Language is a huge part of this," Chase says. "If there's an appreciation for the English language and the use of words, if you love Scrabble, if you love Words With Friends, you may love this, too. … At least [you'll] have learned a few new words." —

Bee there

Pygmalion revives Lee Blessing's timeless story about three bright, strong-willed women struggling to coexist in the same family.

When • Opens Friday, Feb. 24, and plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 11, with an extra matinee March 11 at 2 p.m.

Where • Leona Wagner Black Box Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. Broadway, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $20; $15 for students and seniors; pygmalionproductions.org