Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
✭✭✭✭✩
by Karen Woolridge, directed by Kate Lynch
Johnson Girls, Theatre Passe Muraille Back Space, Toronto
October 28-November 16, 2014
Our Girl: “How can I become the hero of my own life?”
If you could use a good 70 minutes of laughter, then My Treasure Island!!! is just what you need. The play is a stage adaptation by Canadian Karen Woolridge of the novel Treasure Island!!! – no, not by Robert Louis Stevenson (he didn’t use three exclamation points) – but by American writer Sara Levine. Woolridge’s is one of those rare adaptations that has so well rethought the novel for the stage that you could easily believe the story was originally meant as a play. With hilarious performances from Caitlin Driscoll and Gemma James-Smith, this is a show that will appeal to a wide audience.
The conceit of Levine’s 2010 novel and Woolridge’s adaptation is that the central figure, known only as Our Girl (Driscoll), has read Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic boy’s adventure novel Treasure Island (1883) and realized how dull her life has become. She decided that the novel holds the key to improving her situation. Our Girl has graduated from university in humanities, but (surprise!) has not been able to find a full-time job. Having been a gift-wrapper and an ice cream scooper, Our Girl has finally landed a part-time job working for The Pet Library, an unusual shop that lends out pets. Meanwhile, she has become bored with her financially responsible boyfriend Lars because he is so predictable and risk-adverse.
Our Girl’s analysis of Treasure Island has discovered that it promotes four Core Values: Boldness, Resolution, Independence and Horn-Blowing. In deciding to have these Core Values guide her life, Our Girl has found all the justification she needs for saying whatever she wants and being as selfish and unhelpful as she feels. She notes that Responsibility, Consideration and Forgiveness are not among the Core Values.
As part of her Treasure Island kick, Our Girl buys a parrot for The Pet Library but finds that she and the bird never get along since the bird never says what she wants it to say. It is this feature that playwright Karen Woolridge uses to great effect. As Caitlin Driscoll as Our Girl tells her story, she is increasing interrupted by Little Richard the parrot, a puppet manipulated and voiced by Gemma James-Smith. As first Our Girl is annoyed when the parrot imitates other people and begins saying things that contradict what she has just said. Cleverly, Woolridge has the interaction between Our Girl and the parrot segue into the parrot taking on the roles of all the other characters – her sister Adrianna, Lars, her best friend Rena, her mother and Nancy, owner of The Pet Library.
What develops is an hilarious disconnect between the adventure and self-reliance Our Girl thinks she is experiencing and the failure and obnoxious behaviour everyone around her observes. This dissonance between reality and the narrator’s delusions is funny in itself but also serves as a biting critique of the millennial generation who can rationalize staying at home, not working and having no personal relationships as boldness, resolution and independence. (Who knows where the horn-blowing fits in?)
Caitlin Driscoll establishes herself as a sharp comedic actor right from the start. The impression she creates that the audience completely supports whatever her character tells us only increases the humour of the disparity between her version of events and what we see as the truth. Gemma James-Smith is quite amazing as the parrot. Not only is she skilled at making startlingly realistic bird calls and coughs, but she is adept at keeping the various human voices the parrot imitates completely distinct. Both Driscoll and James-Smith have superb comic timing and director Kate Lynch has given the piece a snappy pacing that seems completely impromptu.
There is not as much of Treasure Island in the play as Stevenson fans might like, but playgoers should note the “My” that Woolridge has added to the title. She makes us realize that Our Girl could have appropriated any novel for her purposes, found what she wanted to in it and made it her guide to life. In this way the satire expands beyond a single character and her generation but to self-empowerment movements in general. Woolridge was right when she thought Sara Levine’s book would be perfect for the stage. Her adaptation and Driscoll and James-Smith’s performances are the delightful proof.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: Gemma James-Smith and Caitlin Driscoll. ©2014 Johnson Girls.
For tickets, visit www.johnsongirls.ca.
2014-10-29
My Treasure Island!!!