Gayle Steigerwald (below) and Deborah Sargent play mother and daughter in Lisa Kron's autobiographical comedy, "Well," running through April 6 at the Phoenix Theatre. This is their 16th production together at the Phoenix.

It's typical for some theatergoers to recognize individual performers' names in programs. The more shows they attend, the more they remember past credits.

But how much do they really know about onstage and off-stage relationships?

Consider Gayle Steigerwald and Deborah Sargent, who are playing a mother and daughter in the Phoenix Theatre's ongoing production of "Well."

Lisa Kron's autobiographical comic drama happens to be Steigerwald's 16th production with Sargent at the Phoenix. It turns out that they have been performing together since the mid-1980s, are onetime poker buddies, and have become great friends.

In "Well," Sargent portrays the now-40-something playwright, Lisa, who is trying to come to terms with events from her childhood in Lansing, Mich., where her mother, Ann Kron, resolved to stay put in a neighborhood that had been integrated. The playwright's investigation takes the form of a four-character play, and as the show pro-gresses, Lisa's mother (Steigerwald) keeps interrupting to "correct" her daughter's version of the past.

"The daughter is having real problems balancing this thing," Steigerwald said. "There's the fact that the mother seems to be so sickly, and yet she has so much energy and achieves so much."

"Well" is merely the latest chapter in the two actors' remarkably long history of performing together, mainly at the Phoenix. Their first show there was Christopher Durang's "Baby With the Bathwater," during the 1984-85 season.

"I've played her mother a number of times, her grandmother once, and a fellow mother," said Steigerwald, a 60-year-old editor and proofreader originally from Cincinnati. "I've also played her psychiatrist, and we were sisters-in-law."

In "Mother Russia," Steigerwald played an orphanage director, and Sargent was her "wheeling and dealing daughter." In "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," Sargent's character felt trapped in a small Irish village because she had to stay and care for her sick, cantankerous mother. Then in "Fuddy Meers," Steigerwald played a stroke victim who wanted to warn her daughter about a dangerous situation, but couldn't communicate.

Sargent, who originally hails from Gary, said that, in the past, she was often Steigerwald's "straight man. I learned everything I know about comic timing from her ... I learned very early that the way you don't laugh onstage with her is to grind your molars, which is why I have teeth problems today."

Steigerwald said she and Sargent raised their children at about the same time, and have been there for each other during major life events. At this point, they joke that, eventually, they will "retire to the Old Phoenix Actors' Home together, too, because no one else will have us."