The Reservoir

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Alcoholism and Alzheimer’s wouldn’t seem to have much in common. However, Jake Brasch cleverly links the two in his comedy drama The Reservoir, the story of a recovering drunk on leave from college who goes home to discover his grandparents are sinking into old age, which he never noticed before. Rising star Noah Galvin who replaced Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen and then co-wrote and starred in the film Theater Camp has the role of a lifetime as Josh who never leaves the stage throughout the play and who experiences the year after he dropped out of NYU. Surrounded by some of the most well-known and experienced theater pros around (Heidi Armbruster, Peter Maloney, Mary Beth Peil, Matthew Saldívar and Chip Zien) he holds the stage even as his character relapses and regresses at the worse possible moment.

Directed by Shelley Butler on a set designed by Takeshi Kata made up of diaphanous blue curtains suggesting waves, the play moves fluidly through many short scenes as Josh interacts with each grandparent alone and sometimes in groups as well as his mother, his boss and other local personalities. The play begins with Josh on stage alone waking up facing Cherry Creek Reservoir in his hometown of Denver. For Josh, this a place of contentment but he has no idea how he got here as the last thing he remembers is being kicked out of rehab on medical leave from NYU in New York. When he goes home, his mother Patricia isn’t glad to see him after all the money she paid for rehab but not only lets him in she finds him a part-time job at the bookstore where she has worked for 30 years as the book buyer.

However, Josh is possessed by a brain fog which makes it impossible to remember how to alphabetize so he shelves the books by smell and spends a great deal of time reading medical and self-help books. This is where he stumbles on Cognitive Reserve: Theory and Applications by Yaakov Stern PHD. According to Dr Stern, “Education, curiosity, diet, sleep, exercise, these all increase your Cognitive Reserve. The higher your reserve, the better you cope with Alzheimer’s or other issues. Cognitive Reserve allows you to develop new pathways once disease forms.” As Josh sees it, “It allows the water to follow elsewhere! My river is flowing towards Wild Turkey Ocean. Their rivers are running into stoppages. Different problems-same solution. We all need pathways, new places for the water to go. Reservoirs. We each just need a reservoir.”

And so Josh decides to help his grandparents. He prescribes a great deal of spinach to all of them as part of a healthy diet. He goes to senior aerobics at the JCC with his paternal grandmother Beverly. He helps his paternal grandfather Shrimpy (born Melvin) practice his torah portion for a second bar mitzvah, while Shrimpy in the throes of dementia is continually losing his pants. He is surprised to find that his maternal grandparents Hank and Irene have moved to a senior assisted living center as Irene has developed Alzheimer’s. He has lunch with them when Irene suddenly launches into a perfect rendition of “Come All Ye Faithful” showing she is not completely gone.

However, upset by an unexpected funeral, Josh relapses and comes to his grandmother Bev for help. She reveals that she was an alcoholic bringing up two kids but she has now been sober for 50 years. She tells Josh she can help him but he must put himself entirely in her hands. She feeds him a hearty breakfast and takes him to his first AA meeting in a long time and Josh is in on the way to recovery. However, Bev, a former electrical engineer, worries about her future as “the higher the reserve, the sharper the fall,” a quote from Dr. Stern’s book which Josh gets her to read. As Josh opens up to other people, he discovers that his boss Hugo is also gay and a recovering alcoholic just like him.

While Galvin’s Josh is an unsympathetic character he commands the stage throughout. His layered performance takes him through many stages and crises. We never learn his backstory other than that he started drink in his early teens.  He is at times charming, at others exasperating and frustrating. Hs is always convincing as the college age alcoholic who has a sense of humor about his situation. He never changes his costume except for removing a sweater but he makes us feel that much time passed in the course of the play. Demonstrating tremendous versatility, Armbruster and Saldívar play many characters and change Sara Ryung Clement’s colorful costumes to fit their roles. Armbruster plays Josh’s exasperated mom Patricia, peppy aerobics instructor Lenni and amused Rabbi Silver. Saldívar begins as Josh’s boss the understanding Hugo, and he is seen again later as nurturing aide Taylor at the assisted living facility as well as the unflappable Dr. Yaakov Stern, the author of the book on Cognitive Reserve Josh is reading.

As the grandparents, the quartet of well-known actors play very individualized senior citizens. Maloney as the conservative Hank is grumpy with Josh as he deals with his wife sinking further and further into her dementia. As his wife Irene, Peil is both cheerful and vivacious as Irene in the flashbacks and vacant as her Alzheimer’s takes over in the present. Having been an opera singer and appeared in Broadway musicals, Peil gets to use her still lovely voice in her one scene where she sings a solo. As the no-nonsense Bev, Aaron is acerbic and ironic as well as always right. Her late descent into Alzheimer’s is just as scary as that of Irene’s earlier. Zien’s hilarious Shrimpy has language laced with inappropriate sexual terms but he is aware of what is happening to him. Together they make a very engaging quartet of ancestors whom Josh relates to differently.

Kata’s unit set with its blue curtains lacks atmosphere but allows for smooth, quick transitions from scene to scene. The subtle lighting by Jiyoung Chang changes for each environment in this multi-scened play. Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir at times seems long as it has so many short vignettes but ultimately wraps up the story in a neat package. Shelley Butler directs the excellent cast with a sure hand and a talent for keeping things moving swiftly along.

The Reservoir (extended through March 22, 2026)

Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 646-452-2220 or visit http://www.atlantictheater.org

Running time: two hours and 20 minutes including one intermission