✭✭✭✩✩

by Andrew Faiz, directed by Daniel Kash

The Junes Company, Toronto Fringe Festival, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto

July 7-15, 2005

Kathryn Albertson was a star in musicals in Canada in the 1950s whom everyone expected to go on to greater stardom in the States.  All doors were open to her, but her alcoholism closed them and she was finished at age 25.  In this one-woman show, Albertson herself, now in her late 70s, tells clear-eyed anecdotes about her life.  Andrew Faiz, who assembled the rambling script, dwells on her days of fame, but we really would like to know more about how she kept herself going, how she overcame alcoholism, how gained the courage she clearly has to accept her life as it is.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2005-07-14.

Photo: Kathryn Albertson, Marsha Rivers, Faith Dane, Carroll Jo Towers and Barbara London of the musical Gypsy. ©1960 Armand Sevesta, Bettmann/CORBIS images.