✭✭✭✩✩ / ✭✭✭✭✩

by GB Shaw / Neil LaBute, directed by Carly Chamberlain

Neoteny Theatre, Red Sandcastle Theatre, Toronto

March 28-April 6, 2013

Mr. Juno: “Marriage is all very well; but it isn't romance”.

A brand-new company, Neoteny Theatre, has launched itself with an intriguing double bill pairing one-act plays George Bernard Shaw with Neil LaBute.  What links the two very different plays – Overruled (1912) by the former and Romance (2010) by the latter – is the theme of romance and infidelity.  In Overruled, Mr. June claims that “Marriage is all very well; but it isn't romance” while the character “A” in Romance proclaims outright that “Romance is dead”.  While it is great to see a young company take on Shaw, there’s no doubt that LaBute’s contemporary play is the better performed of the two.

It good to see Neoteny Theatre choose one of Shaw’s many one-act plays because the Shaw festival itself has been neglecting them for some time now.  The last Shaw one-acter it staged was Village Wooing (1934) back in 1999.  Overruled is one of Shaw’s very best one-acters and one of his most Wildean with almost as many bon mots flying out per minute as in The Importance of Being Earnest.  Yet, the Shaw Festival has staged the plays only twice – in 1980 and 1992.  The Neoteny production is worth seeing if only to acquaint or re-acquaint yourself with this uproarious gem. 

The action opens in the lobby of a seaside hotel where the dandyish Gregory Lunn (Kelly Penner) is flirting with the quite receptive Mrs. Juno (Caitlin Stewart).  All is heading toward an ardent romantic dalliance when Gregory discovers that Mrs. Lunn is not a widow as e had supposed and Mrs. Juno finds that Gregory is a married man staying in the hotel with his wife. Much of the humour derives from the two trying to justify proceeding with the romance while at the same time acknowledging the complete social impropriety of doing so.  At the sound of their spouses’ voices the two scurry off.

It so happens that Sibthorpe Juno (Amos Crawley) and Mrs. Lunn (Meghan Swaby) have also been mutually flirting.  They, however, are flirting in a very Shavian fashion after having examined the situation logically.  They have both found that extramarital affairs help make the unnatural institution of marriage bearable.  As Mrs. Lunn says, “I don't like being loved: it bores me. But I do like to be amused”.  When Gregory and Mrs. Juno return to interrupt their spouses’ affair, they find that contrary to the big blow-up they were expecting, Mr. Juno and Mrs. Lunn are happy for them and wish them to continue with their relationship.  By the end, in a move anticipating the absurdism of Ionesco, both husbands even lose track of whose wife whose.                 

      

The main problem faced by director Carly Chamberlain is in distinguishing between the two adulterous couples.  The comedy of Sibthorpe and Mrs. Lunn’s relationship is how calm they are regarding the immorality of their situation.  The comedy of Gregory and Mrs. Juno’s relationship is how they are not.  Crawley and Swaby perfectly capture the Shavian humour of logic applied to emotion, with Crawley making much of Sibthorpe’s pomposity and Swaby anchoring the whole piece with sensibility.

Penner and Stewart, however, are encouraged to give overstated performances.  Penner delivers Shaw’s complicated prose with wonderful clarity and emphasis, but he does make Gregory so effete that we begin wonder whether he is really interested in women at all.  Stewart is completely over-the-top with nonstop mugging and wild gestures that make her look like human windmill. 

LaBute’s Romance follows immediately after Overruled without intermission – a wise decision since the two plays together last just over an hour.  The play is written for two actors, regardless of gender.  On opening night, as on all Thursday nights, the roles of “A” and “B” were played by Caitlin Stewart and Meghan Swaby.  On other nights, there are the various heterosexual combinations and on Friday nights the roles are played by Kelly Penner as “A” and Amos Crawley as “B”.  The women’s performances were so powerful, I would really like to see how the men would do.  (Neoteny Theatre allows audience members to return to see the show with a different pairing for only $5.00.) 

The story is simple.  “B” appears unannounced at the lodgings of “A”.  “A” had walked out on “B” without explanation after a relationship of almost five years.  The impetus for “B” to seek out “A” is that “B” has come across a photograph in an old newspaper of “A” kissing another person at a time when the two had been together. 

LaBute skillfully portrays the shifting dynamics of exchange between the two former lovers who start from hostility on the part of “A” and pain on the part of “B” and move toward a strange kind of reconciliation.  Throughout the majority of the play our sympathies have tended to side with the faithful “B” over the promiscuous “A”.  Yet, by the conclusion LaBute gives us cause to have grave doubts about which of the two is really the more honest and whether a reconciliation between the two is actually a good idea.   

It’s a masterfully written play and Chamberlain’s admirably clear direction draws beautifully nuanced performances from both Stewart and Swaby.  Stewart, in complete contrast to her performance in Overruled, plays “A” with great subtlety.  She is suspicious and oddly calm on the surface trying to maintain her distance from “B”, but we can tell she is seething with an anger she is trying to control.  Swaby, unlike her self-sufficient Mrs. Lunn of Overruled, shows us that “B” is filled with conflicting emotions she cannot hide.  She has another partner but it is clear she still loves “A” and , in fact, is obsessed with her. 

Chamberlain’s unexpected pairing of Overruled and Romance proves to be fascinating and thought-provoking – exactly what a good double-bill should be – and real insight.  I was glad to have seen both plays – Overruled for the first time since 1992 and Romance for the first time ever.  Even though Overruled may be rather overheated, there’s no doubt that it is still extraordinarily funny.  Neoteny Theatre has made a fine debut and I very much look forward to its next production.                     

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Kelly Penner, Caitlin Stewart, Meghan Swaby and Amos Crawley. ©2013 Kreddible Trout Photography.

For tickets, visit http://neotenytheatre.com.