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by Peter Quilter, directed by Christopher Newton

CanStage/Theatre Calgary, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto

November 23-December 16, 2006

British playwright Peter Quilter’s 2005 comedy Glorious! centres on American eccentric Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), sometimes dubbed “the worst singer in the world”.  Though blessed with a beautiful production and a first-rate cast, the play is still a one-joke comedy that runs out of steam by the end of Act 1.  That one joke, and an historical fact, is that the wealthy, tone-deaf Jenkins (Nicola Cavendish), fancies herself an opera singer second to none and ends her career with a sold-out recital at Carnegie Hall.  Blissfully unaware of what people really think, she views all negative criticism as “ignorant.”  What little plot there is follows the conversion of Jenkins’s gay accompanist Cosmé McMoon (an affable Jonathan Monro) from horror-struck musician to ardent admirer.

For a real woman to sing unintentionally badly in public is not the same thing as an actress singing intentionally badly on stage.  Quilter constantly strives for this irreproducible effect and failing that settles for simple farce involving Jenkins’s caricatured friends and Mexican maid.  His attempt à la Cervantes to ennoble the innocence of Jenkins’s sublime folly comes too late.  Nevertheless, Cavendish gives an absolutely wonderful performance full of bravado, looniness and even a hint of pathos.  Her impeccable comic timing reveals her yet again as a stage comedienne second to none.        

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-11-30.

Photo: Nicola Cavendish as Florence Foster Jenkins. ©Brian Harder.