True to its title, “My Mind Is Like an Open Meadow” meanders gently. It’s not so much a play as an impressionistic travelogue back in time.
Though this is a solo piece, writer-performer Erin Leddy isn’t alone: She shares the stage with the voice of her grandmother, Sarah Braveman, whose recollections she taped in 2001. Leddy sometimes plays herself, interacting with the older woman, and sometimes she puts on a gray wig and becomes a stylized grandma.
Braveman was an actress, but she doesn’t talk much about her career or the theater here. We do learn that she hates both intermissions — good thing this hourlong show doesn’t have one — and bows at the end of a play, “unless it’s a comedy.”
Mostly Braveman comes across as opinionated and feisty, though sadness creeps in when she talks about her frustrating memory loss.
“It’s so strange how a name will slip away,” she says wistfully after trying to list her cats.
Leddy graduated from college with a degree in radio, and she and director Jonathan Walters are members of the Portland, Ore.-based experimental company Hand2Mouth. You can see both of these influences in the way this affecting piece incorporates choreographed movement as well as sound and music.
Occasionally, Leddy triggers loops and samples with a pedal, and sings wispy indie-pop tunes in a gossamer voice. The effect only adds to the overall dreamlike quality.
In a culture obsessed with youth and the shiny next big thing, “My Life” — with its kind but unflinching look at aging — is an oddity to be treasured.