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by Branislav Nušić, adapted by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, directed by Layne Coleman

Talk Is Free Theatre, 142 Collingwood Street, Barrie

November 29-December 7, 2024

Uncle Vasa: “No one ever made a living from honour”

With Madame Minister, Talk Is Free Theatre, the always surprising theatre company based in Barrie, has come up with yet another hit. You may never have heard of the 1929 play or its Serbian author Branislav Nušić (1864-1938), now receiving its Canadian professional premiere. No matter. As adapted by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman and directed by her father Layne Coleman, the play is absolutely hilarious and provides a jewel of a role for the actor playing the title character. The play is one of those discoveries that make you wonder why, at least for Anglophone world, the piece has languished so long in obscurity and makes you overjoyed that finally someone has found it.

Madame Minister (Gospođa ministarka) is set sometime around the turn of the last century in the house of the Belgrade politician Sima Popović. The household is ruled by Sima’s wife Živka, who finds herself in the humiliating position of having to borrow money from her aunt to make ends meet and admits she hasn’t been able to pay the maid Anka for three months. When Živka’s son-in-law Čeda drops by, we find out that he had to marry Živka’s daughter Dara without a dowry while Živka reminds him that he wouldn’t have even the low-level position he now holds without Sima’s influence.

A clerk arrives to tell Živka that the government has fallen and that their side, i.e. Sima’s, is now in power. Soon it is confirmed that Sima has become a minister. Živka now believes all her worries are over and realizing she can now be addressed as “Madame Minister”, assumes the hauteur such an elevated personage should display. Živka had always thought that Čeda, a musician, was an unsuitable husband for Dara. In the person of the Honorary Counsel to Gibraltar, Živka thinks she has found the ideal husband. Now all she has to do find a way to force Dara to divorce Živka. Živka’s plan is to have the maid get Čeda to come into her room and remove his jacket. Dara will suddenly see them and assume the worst. Of course, the plan goes farcically awry, and Živka has more tests of her resolve to face.

I won’t undertake a comparison of the original with Corbeil-Coleman’s adaption except to say that the adaptation is a delight from beginning to end. Working from Cintija Ašperger’s literal translation, Corbeil-Coleman has fashioned a play where the language is witty yet completely natural and still formal enough to suit the period The original play runs about three-and-a-half hours uncut, whereas Corbeil-Coleman’s adaption runs a tight 90 minutes. Corbeil-Coleman accomplishes this by cutting the dramatis personae from 28 to 14, requiring a cast of only eight with doubling. Corbeil-Coleman’s adaption is lean, swift and crammed with incident.

Corbeil-Coleman has had the brilliant idea of cutting the role of Živka’s husband Sima, who has only five lines in the original. It is better for Sima not to appear to allow us to imagine what kind of man could be married to such a domineering woman as Živka. It also underscores the main irony in the play that the events inside the Popović house are completely subject to events happening elsewhere. Any notion Živka may have that she has power over her own life or over the lives of others is an illusion since her status is entirely dependent on that of her husband. The comedy of the powerless glorying in the little power they have would strike a piquant note in Serbia which for 400 years (1459-1878) was ruled either by the Ottomans or the Habsburgs.

Director Layne Coleman gives the action a headlong momentum with incident following incident, speech following speech, in quick succession. The entire cast is in top form, but Laura Condlln is extraordinary fine as Živka. Condlln has demonstrated her gift for comedy many times before, but dazzles as Živka and convinces you that this is one of the greatest comic roles ever written for a woman. Condlln carefully details how Živka’s constant state of grievance at the beginning sets the stage for her revenge and triumph once she rises in status. One of most humorous sequences in the play is when Doctor Niniković, a ladies man from the ministry, arrives to teach Živka how to behave as a minister’s wife. The way Condlln depicts the battle in Živka’s mind between her native conventional morality and the immoral behaviour that Niniković claims is expected is side-splittingly funny. Condlln’s fiery delivery of Živka’s angry final speech to the audience, as per the original, chastising them for finding pleasure in her pain, is perfectly uproarious.

Cyrus Lane well distinguishes his two roles of Pera, the humble clerk from the ministry, and the would-be suave Doctor Niniković, a Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this latter role Lane gives what may be his best ever comic performance. Niniković, who fancies himself a great seducer of women, speaks English in a heavy French accent but when he speaks French, he pronounces it as if it were English. What makes Lane’s performance so funny is the utmost seriousness he maintains even when he is speaking is such a bizarre manner – a manner we can easily see through but that Živka cannot.

As Živka’s son-in-law Čeda, Nolan Moberly is also very funny but in a completely different way from Lane as Niniković. Čeda has so much built-up resentment against Živka that he flies off the handle at a moment’s notice. His best moments come when the Honorary Counsel for Gibraltar arrives and mistakes Čeda for Živka’s Uncle Vasa. Čeda learns of Živka’s plot against him and turns the tables on the Counsel. Moberly shows how he can’t believe his good fortune to have discovered the plot but tries to hide this feeling as he plays the earnest Vasa.

Aidan deSalaiz plays three roles but his principal role is Uncle Vasa. He makes Vasa comic mainly by showing how completely unfazed he is when faced with Živka’s outrage and anger. Noah Beemer also plays three roles, one being Živka’s son Raka, whose part Corbeil-Coleman has reduced to an offstage voice. Beemer’s main role is that of the Honorary Counsel whom Beemer plays as fully secure in the knowledge of his own importance until Čeda as Vasa suggests that Čeda will come after him with a gun. At that point Beemer shows the Counsel’s self-confidence drain away and turn to fear.

Brittany Kay plays Živka’s daughter Dara as a young woman who would be a dutiful daughter who rebels when her mother tries to break up her marriage. Gabi Epstein plays two older women who give Živka advice. One is Živka’s Aunt Savka, who speaks with a languid superior tone. The other is serious Mrs. Nata, resigned to her fate as a former minister’s wife. She visits Živka to tell her of her own experience of losing friends and fame, nothing that Živka wants to hear about.

The liveliest woman in the lay other than Živka is the pert maid Anka, who Mariya Khomutova plays with an endearing spriteliness. A running joke, besides Anka’s constant changing of hairstyles, is Anka’s repeated solemn statement that she is an actress and therefore can play anything.

Talk Is Free Theatre have added to the enjoyment of the play by staging it in a private home. The home happens to be the Stevenson Historic Mansion, a huge Second Empire-style house built in 1879. The playing area is the central hallway and the audience sits in the large rooms on either side of it. Layne Coleman has noticed that the two rooms can be closed off from the hallway by 7-foor-high pocket doors. These doors he uses as a curtain with Anka opening each side while giving the audience a look of surprise and closing them again to indicate that time will pass.

TIFT’s Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak has made an inspired choice in selecting Nušić’s play, but then Spivak has made Barrie audiences accustomed to bold choices that become major successes. Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman’s adaptation should make the play a tempting option for theatre companies that would otherwise have been put off by the large cast of the original. Above all what the adaptation provides is a terrific new role for female actors who are no longer ingenues, a role that really is on par with the great male monomaniacs of Molière’s best-known comedies. Kudos to all involved in bringing this great play so impressively to life.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Laura Condlln as Živka; Cyrus Lane as Doctor Niniković and Laura Condlln as Živka; Cyrus Lane as Doctor Niniković, Brittany Kay as Dara, Nolan Moberly as Čeda and Laura Condlln as Živka; Mariya Khomutova as Anka, Laura Condlln as Živka and Noah Beemer as the Honorary Counsel. © 2024 Dahlia Katz. 

For tickets visit: www.tift.ca.