Another great review Laugh and cry with Shirley Valentine By Dorothy Brotherton Westside Weekly Apparently, there’s only one actor in Kelowna Actors’ Studios latest release, Shirley Valentine, but it’s hard to believe. Every time Patricia Burns as Valentine says “apparently,” she divulges a delightful bit of gossip about people in her world and brings them to life for the audience, although they never appear on stage. Filled with humour and spice, (too much spice for children), the play is a nearly two-hour monologue by one woman, but you’re sure you’ve also met Shirley’s husband, Joe, her two grown children, her neighbour who delivers the silk robe, her friend who buys her a ticket for a Greek holiday, and even the mysterious “Christopher Columbus.” Burns brings these invisible people to life is with her strong mimicry of their voices, from her dying father to her withdrawn husband. One of the best is when she crawls into the skin of a tourist who holds forth about ancient Greek fishing boats. She builds each gossipy anecdote to a climax and then delivers the perfectly-timed punch-line. The story takes place mainly in Shirley Bradshaw’s home in England in the 1980s, where she talks to the wall and resentfully gets a meal for her husband, who expects it on the table when he gets home. We hear the voice of the head mistress who belittled Shirley as a child; we hear the friend tempting Shirley to get away; we hear Joe’s silence behind his newspaper and his abusive, “What’s this?” when he shoves the chips and egg into her lap. But through the humour and ribaldry, we hear mainly Shirley’s longing for meaning, and her desperateness to connect with someone, anyone, even the wall. “Words get spoken but die because there’s nowhere for them to go,” she says plaintively. While the frustrated housewife character seems a bit retro to the 1950s, the theme of frustrated dreamer is timeless. “I’d lived such a little life and one way or another it would soon be over. Why is it we have all this unused life? Shirley Valentine just got lost in all that unused life,” she muses thoughtfully. The self-described rebel breaks out of her dull existence to chase her dreams: “Course I’m terrified, but I’m not going to let that stop me.” The play ends with a hint of optimism that she and Joe may find their early love, as she says with a wink, “Dreams are never in the place you expect them to be.” In an earlier interview, Burns explained her technique for memorizing the long monologue. “It was not that difficult. It is written amazingly well. It’s actually a string of monologues, and it flows.” She memorized it in chunks or thought groups, and strung the separate parts together. “The most difficult part was getting the Liverpool accent.” Director Margaret Gobie said, “I think we all hit that moment in life where we need a quick review of the journey so far and a re-mapping for going forward.” Shirley Valentine is a reprisal of Burns’ success in the role at KAS in 2006. The play was written by Willy Russell and is one of his best known, premiering in 1986. KAS will take Shirley Valentine on the road in the next few months, to Abbotsford, Castlegar and Prince George. Nate Flavel, executive producer, said, “The set has been built to travel.” It’s the first play KAS has taken on the road, chosen because of the simplicity of a one-woman cast. Shirley Valentine runs at KAS, 1379 Ellis St., Kelowna, until Sept. 28. Ticket information is at 250-862-2867 or KelownaActorsStudio.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 19:47:34 +0000
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