✭✭✭✩✩

by Willy Russell, directed by Roy Surette

Canadian Stage Company/Centaur Theatre Company, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto

April 18, 2009

The Canadian Stage company’s production of Shirley Valentine marks a fitting conclusion to Martin Bragg’s 11-year tenure as the company’s Artistic Producer.  Willy Russell’s 1986 hit is the kind of non-challenging, middle-of-the-road fare, validated by awards won elsewhere, that CanStage has become identified with.  This is, in fact, the third time CanStage has presented Shirley Valentine, each time directed by Roy Surette and starring Nicola Cavendish, who originated the role in Canada in 1990.  This time there seems to be a disparity between Surette’s goal to keep the play as fluffy as possible and Cavendish’s desire to present Shirley more seriously.  

Most theatre-goers will already know the story either from any of its innumerable summer stock productions or from the much-loved 1989 movie starring Pauline Collins.  Simply put, a bored 46-year-old Liverpudlian housewife and mother is given a free trip to Greece for two weeks and thus the chance finally to escape her empty routine and loveless marriage.  What makes the one-woman play so enjoyable is the irrepressible humour Shirley uses to describe her dull life in monologues addressed to her kitchen wall and her versatility in mimicking all the people she’s ever met.  The play’s flaw, however, is that the more ebullient Shirley seems, the less likely it is such a person would find herself in her present situation of isolation and friendlessness.  The play’s message that one must not lead an unlived life would be uplifting if Russell did not underline it so heavily.        

Cavendish is one of Canada’s greatest comediennes and one can watch the play simply to marvel at her amazing technique that can summon up characters with a simple gesture or change of voice.  She allows Shirley to become more morose as she drinks and reaches a point much nearer to despair than is usual.  Yet, she has to contend with Surette’s wayward direction that, contrary to her talents, encourages mugging and caricature instead of characterization and presents the play as a kind of stand-up comedy with sets and costumes instead of a character study.  It’s just plain distracting to have her actually cook a meal in the functional kitchen and speak over the splutters and hisses of frying.  If you don’t inquire into it too deeply, the play gives you the fun of believing you can reboot life at 46.  Mostly, it simply gives you the pleasure of watching Cavendish, for the last time, in one of her signature roles. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-03-27.

Photo: Nicola Cavendish. ©Yanick Macdonald.