Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✭✩
by Maja Ardal, directed by Mary Francis Moore
Contrary Company, Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, Toronto
November 16-December 4, 2010
Maja Ardal’s one-woman play The Cure for Everything is a truthful, warm-hearted laugh-out-loud look at adolescence. It’s the sequel to Ardal’s hit show You Fancy Yourself that first introduced us to Elsa, the precocious daughter of Icelandic immigrants to Edinburgh. Elsa is desperate to fit in to her new world but her outsider status gives her a more objective view of its workings than those born to it.
The play is set during the two weeks of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Elsa is now 14 and intent on getting the attention of Brian Baxter, a boy she has a crush on but has never met. Short, pudgy and freckled, she thinks she has little chance of joining the in-crowd of girls who make a daily after-school walk past the boys to advertise themselves and feign their indifference. Her only hope is her newly bought Beatles-print tights. To Elsa’s amazement she is befriended by Sheena Johnson, the most “fab” girl in school and idol of the in-crowd, whose outer glamour harbours a dark secret. The fear of Elsa’s parents that the US-Soviet confrontation will lead to a third world war creates a crisis for Elsa. How is she going to finish her life’s “To Do” list--getting drunk, losing her virginity (preferably to Brian) and getting famous (or having a baby)--before the world ends?
As is typical of other coming-of-age stories, what was imagined as exciting turns out not to be and what was once spurned becomes the greatest comfort. One of the great virtues of Ardal’s play is that she never makes so bald a statement. Instead, she completely captures with idiosyncratic humour the naively egocentric mindset of a young teen. Of course, to Elsa, her personal crisis is more important than any world crisis. Elsa is confronted with many things that are morally distasteful, but Ardal knows that young kids can often recognize something as bad or wrong without being able to formulate precisely why. The show is built on such keen observation. On a bare stage Ardal masterfully plays a dozen characters--young and old, male and female--easily slipping from one to the other but keeping them all distinct with simple changes of voice and posture. Elsa’s voyage of discovery may have familiar landmarks but Ardal’s wit and exuberant performance make them all seem new. As the weather gets colder this is the perfect show to warm you up inside.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-11-18.
Photo: Maja Ardal. ©Aviva Armour Ostroff.
2010-11-18
The Cure for Everything